The Health Impacts of the 2024 U.S. Election on Power, Partnerships, and Rights in the United States and Around the Globe

To conclude our IIGH 5th anniversary event series with its focus on power, partnerships and rights, we invite you to join us as we explore these key tenets in the aftermath of the recent U.S. presidential election. This virtual event, “The Health Impacts of the 2024 U.S. Election on Power, Partnerships, and Rights in the United States and Around the Globe,” will take place on Tuesday, December 3rd, at 9:00 am PST/12:00 pm EST/6:00 pm CET.

Promoting and protecting health-related human rights has been central to the mission and vision of the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health since we came into being in 2019. Many are concerned that the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election will exacerbate inequalities here in the U.S., and have grave effects on the realities of health around the world. 

The one-hour virtual panel event, grounded in this complicated moment of political instability, rights regression, and anti-gender movements, will explore how these issues are relevant to health and well-being, and where there is the potential for shared reflection and action. Our conversation will reflect generally on the impacts of elections on health from the local to the global – with panelists uniquely in tune with the impacts of U.S. health governance and decision-making for the United States, for the Americas, and for the world. This event is key for understanding, and anticipating, the future of collective action to promote and protect health and rights in the years to come.

The dialogue will be moderated by IIGH Director Sofia Gruskin. 

The webinar is hosted by the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health. 

Please join us on Tuesday, December 3, at 9:00 am PST/12:00 pm EST/6:00 pm CET.

Speakers:

Frank Mugisha is the Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and a gay rights activist. During his undergraduate studies, Mugisha founded Icebreakers Uganda in 2004, an organization created as a support network for LGBTQ+ Ugandans who are out or in the process of coming out to family and friends. Since then, he has scaled his efforts by leading Sexual Minorities Uganda, an umbrella organization that consists of eighteen groups, including the first and only LGBTQ+ health center in Uganda. In addition to promoting equality for the LGBTQ+ community in Uganda, Mugisha and his team at SMUG have been fighting legal and ideological battles with Ugandan Parliament and anti-LGBTQ+ groups for years. He has also championed legal efforts against anti-LGBTQ+ groups in the U.S. District Court to curb discriminatory, anti-gay rhetoric from pervading Ugandan society. Mugisha has led the grassroots movement to save thousands of LBGTQ+ Ugandans, like himself, from persecution, incarceration, and death - just for being who they are. He, along with members of his executive team at SMUG, were brutally arrested at Uganda's annual pride march and tortured in prison. For his courageous work, Mugisha has been honored by dozens of institutions including but not limited to: Human Rights Defenders, the United Nations, Black Entertainment Television (BET), Fortune & Vogue Magazines, Rafto Foundation, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights and Amnesty International. He has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and named on the TIME’s 100 Most Influential People list. He speaks to audiences of all ages and importance frequently sharing his story and inspiring others to fight for basic freedoms.

Jamie Vernaelde is a Senior Researcher at Ipas where she monitors transnational anti-rights movements and reports on threats to human rights and gender justice. She has over 15 years' experience in policy analysis, evidence-based advocacy, and partnering with civil society organizations. Prior to working at Ipas, Jamie documented the impacts of U.S. foreign policy, including the Global Gag Rule, and conducted investigations in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, including on crackdowns against civil society and LGBTQI+ populations, and violations of women’s and children’s rights. Jamie holds a master’s degree from Georgetown University, is fluent in French, and is based in Washington, DC.

Jennifer Kates is Senior Vice President and Director of the Global Health & HIV Policy Program at KFF, where she oversees policy analysis and research focused on the U.S. government’s role in global health and on the global and domestic HIV epidemics. She has also helped to lead KFF’s work on the COVID-19 pandemic. Widely regarded as an expert in the field, she regularly publishes and presents on global health and HIV policy issues and is particularly known for her work analyzing donor government investments in global health; assessing and mapping the U.S. government’s global health architecture, programs, and funding; and tracking and analyzing major U.S. HIV programs and financing, and key trends in the HIV epidemic, an area she has been working in for close to 30 years. Prior to joining KFF in 1998, Kates was a Senior Associate with The Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm, where she focused on HIV policy, strategic planning/health systems analysis, and health care for vulnerable populations. Among other prior positions, she directed the Office of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns at Princeton University. Kates has served on numerous federal and private sector advisory committees on global health and HIV issues. Kates holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, a Master in Public Affairs degree from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts. She received her Ph.D. in health policy from George Washington University.

Nancy Krieger is Professor of Social Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the HSPH Interdisciplinary Concentration on Women, Gender, and Health. Krieger is an internationally recognized social epidemiologist with 30+ years of activism involving social justice, science, and health. Her work addresses: (1) conceptual frameworks to understand, analyze, and improve people’s health, including her ecosocial theory of disease distribution and its focus on embodiment and equity; (2) etiologic research on societal determinants of population health and health inequities; and (3) methodologic research on improving monitoring of health inequities. In 2004, she became an ISI highly cited scientist, a distinction awarded to less than 0.5% of publishing researchers, with rankings reaffirmed in 2015 and 2022, 2023, and 2024. In 2013, she received the Wade Hampton Frost Award from the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association, and in 2015 and 2020, she was awarded the American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professorship. In 2021, she was appointed as member of the UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Slave Route Project: Resistance, Liberty, Heritage. In 2023, she received the Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health by the American Public Health Association, its “oldest and most prestigious medal.”

Moderator:

Sofia Gruskin directs the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health (IIGH). She is USC Distinguished Professor of Population, Public Health Sciences & Law, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Chief of the Disease Prevention, Policy and Global Health Division at the Keck School of Medicine, and Professor of Law and Preventive Medicine at the Gould School of Law. A pioneer in bringing together multidisciplinary approaches to global health, her work — which ranges from global policy to the grassroots level — has been instrumental in developing the conceptual, methodological and empirical links between health and human rights. She currently sits on numerous international boards and committees including the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board, the Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health, the IUSSP Steering Committee to Strengthen Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems, and the Lancet Commission on Health and Human Rights. She has published extensively, including several books, training manuals and edited journal volumes, and more than 200 articles and chapters.