Outreach & Engaged Scholarship
Primary Theme: Global Health
Although 15% of the world’s population has some form of disability, the system of public health and health services is not adequately organized to promote independence. Even the most developed and well-resourced nations have medically underserved regions and communities where the presence of disability is compounded by inequities in social determinants of health. In 2016, the Global Alliance on Disability and Health Innovation (GANDHI) launched to engage students, faculty, the Duke community and external partners to examine the system supporting transitions in health and healthcare for people who experience an acute illness or injury and are newly living with disability. With almost a dozen projects in multiple countries over 18 months, coupled with historical evidence that it takes 17 years for evidence-based solutions to be adopted as standard practice, GANDHI team members have asked: What makes an innovation stick? Why does it take so long to scale up interventions?