Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Global Development in Policy and Practice: The Polio Eradication Initiative from Atlanta to Rural Pakistan

历史上最大的公共卫生项目--根除脊髓灰质炎倡议可能即将取得成功。然而，在巴基斯坦，根除已被证明是难以捉摸的。这项研究将考察世界各地的政策制定者如何理解和处理在巴基斯坦根除艾滋病的障碍。公共卫生硕士研究生Svea H.Closser在Peter J.Brown博士的指导下，将从巴基斯坦境外的政策制定者到巴基斯坦首都伊斯兰堡的政府官员和援助组织，再到巴基斯坦农村地区的免疫接种活动的接受者，学习根除脊髓灰质炎倡议的理念、政策和做法。这些人很少面对面，但通过根除脊髓灰质炎倡议将他们联系在一起。她推测，可能正是这些联系的性质，构成了竞选活动在巴基斯坦面临的困难。从这个角度来看，根除腐败的成功不取决于实验室通过组织因素取得的突破，包括与巴基斯坦社区的关系。这位研究人员将在亚特兰大的疾病控制中心和日内瓦的世界卫生组织观察会议并进行采访，采访巴基斯坦首都的政府和援助官员，并在研究的最后五个月跟踪巴基斯坦农村地区的一个脊髓灰质炎小组的工作。在其他目标中，研究人员将检查规划者如何理解和部署“腐败”和“妇女地位”的概念，这些概念是巴基斯坦文化的组成部分，被认为是成功根除的障碍。她将试图确定这些障碍是否是规划者认为的障碍，或者是否有其他因素应受到指责。这项研究将通过仔细关注人员、思想和信息的中介流动，有助于对全球化的科学理解。它将有助于建立对国际发展机构等全球网络如何运作并与特定社区互动的细致入微的理解。它将有助于理解可能解释一个历史性项目在关键时刻成败的变量。研究结果将与根除脊髓灰质炎规划者分享，促进国际合作，并提供可能有助于根除工作的实用信息。

The Polio Eradication Initiative, the largest public health project in history, is perhaps on the verge of success. In Pakistan, however, eradication has proved elusive. This study will examine how policymakers around the globe understand and deal with the barriers to eradication in Pakistan. Graduate student, Svea H. Closser, MPH, supervised by Dr. Peter J. Brown, will follow the ideas, policies, and practices of the Polio Eradication Initiative from policymakers outside Pakistan, to government officials and aid groups in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, and then to the recipients of immunization campaigns in rural Pakistan. These are groups of people who rarely, if ever, meet face-to-face, but who are nevertheless linked through the Polio Eradication Initiative. She hypothesizes that it may be the nature of those linkages that underlies the difficulties the campaign has faced in Pakistan. From this perspective, success in eradicating poiowill depend not on laboratory breakthrous by on organization factors, including relations with Pakistani communities. The researcher will observe meetings and conduct interviews at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and the WHO in Geneva, interview government and aid officials in Pakistan's capital, and, for the final five months of her research, follow a polio team at work in rural Pakistant. Among other goals, the researcher will examine how planners understand and deploy the concepts of "corruption" and "women's status," as aspects of Pakistani culture that are assumed to act as barriers to successful eradication. She will try to determine whether or not they are the barriers that planners believe them to be, or whether other factors are to blame. This research will contribute to scientific understanding of globalization by careful attention to the intermediating flows of people, ideas, and information. It will help to build a nuanced understanding of how global networks like international development institutions function and interact with specific communities. It will help to understand the variables that may explain the success or failure of an historic project at a key moment. Research findings will be shared with polio eradication planners, fostering international collaboration and providing practical information that may assist in the eradication effort.