Khanzar

Khanzar is a student at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Training for Students complete!

About me

I am an undergraduate student at Rice University studying Cognitive Sciences and minoring in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. My interests are in global reproductive health disparities, the influence of religion on attitudes towards sex and gender, and medico-ethical decision-making, especially concerning end-of-life care. Regions of particular interest are South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the United States. I look forward to contributing to the wealth of knowledge that grows every day on Wikipedia!

This user is a member or supporter of
WikiProject Women's Health.

This user is a participant in WikiProject Feminism.

This user supports the Society for Neuroscience Wikipedia Initiative.

Current project (Spring 2017)

Migrant health

My interest in migrant health arose from the cross-section of my interests in access to reproductive health and the global displacement of people by crises in the Middle East and Africa. When I navigated to the Migrant Health article on Wikipedia, hoping to learn more about the historic and contemporary means by which governments provide healthcare to refugees, I was disappointed to find an article with myriad issues. The article is an orphan, lacking links both to and from other articles, making it difficult to find; its US-centric focus is so strong that the more appropriate title would be “Migrant Health in the US.” On the Talk page, I noticed that the article is the work of a student in another Wiki Education course. This student user has contributed a lot to the content of the article, but perhaps her most valuable contributions are on the Talk page, where she highlights work still to be done: a lot of information lacks citation, there are broken links and links to webpages which do not directly provide source information, and while up-to-date statistical and epidemiological data about migrant health exists, it makes no appearance in the article.

I also found the “European migrant crisis” article on Wikipedia. This article is frequently updated and a well-written overview of the current refugee crisis. The article mentions refugee health only two times (in the context of Austria, which provides healthcare for migrants destined for Germany, and Greece, where migrants face deteriorating health in winter conditions). Given the article’s aim to provide a general overview of the crisis, it makes sense that health is mentioned only in passing and in two specific contexts. However, the article would be an excellent one with which to link the “Migrant Health” article. Further, a more generalized summary statement about refugee health issues could be included in the “European migrant crisis” article.

Proposed Changes

My primary objectives in editing the “Migrant Health” article are:

1.     to remove the US-centric focus and provide a global overview of migrant health;

2.     to repair and add scholarly citations to the article; and

3.     to improve article visibility.

Sources

1. Anagnostopoulos, D. C., Triantafyllou, K., Xylouris, G., Bakatsellos, J., & Giannakopoulos, G. (2016). Migration mental health issues in Europe: the case of Greece. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 25(1), 119-122.
2. Hebebrand, J., Anagnostopoulos, D., Eliez, S., Linse, H., Pejovic-Milovancevic, M., & Klasen, H. (2016). A first assessment of the needs of young refugees arriving in Europe: what mental health professionals need to know.
3. Khan, M. S., Osei-Kofi, A., Omar, A., Kirkbride, H., Kessel, A., Abbara, A., ... & Dar, O. (2016). Pathogens, prejudice, and politics: the role of the global health community in the European refugee crisis. The Lancet infectious diseases, 16(8), e173-e177.
4. Kousoulis, A. A., Ioakeim-Ioannidou, M., & Economopoulos, K. P. (2016). Access to health for refugees in Greece: lessons in inequalities. International journal for equity in health, 15(1), 122.
5. McNeely, C. A., & Morland, L. (2016). The Health of the newest Americans: how US public health systems can support Syrian refugees. American Journal of Public Health.
6. Milovancevic, M. P., Ispanovic, V., & Stupar, D. (2016). Lessons learned from the past on mental health care of refugee children in Serbia. European child & adolescent psychiatry, 25(6), 669-672.
7. Morgan, J. (2016). Frontline: Providing health care in Greece's refugee camps. The Lancet, 388(10046), 748.
8. Poulakou, G., Bassetti, M., & Timsit, J. F. (2016). Critically ill migrants with infection: diagnostic considerations for intensive care physicians in Europe. Intensive Care Med, 42(2), 245-248.
9. Stevens, G. W., & Walsh, S. D. (2016). Deepening Our Understanding of Risk and Resilience Factors for Mental Health Problems in Refugee Youth: A Plea for Scientific Research. Journal of Adolescent Health, 58(5), 582-583.
10. Yun, K., Matheson, J., Payton, C., Scott, K. C., Stone, B. L., Song, L., ... & Mamo, B. (2016). Health profiles of newly arrived refugee children in the United States, 2006–2012. American Journal of Public Health, 106(1), 128-135.
11. Yun, K., Urban, K., Mamo, B., Matheson, J., Payton, C., Scott, K. C., ... & Lin, H. (2016). Increasing Hepatitis B Vaccine Prevalence Among Refugee Children Arriving in the United States, 2006–2012. American Journal of Public Health, 106(8), 1460-1462.

Previous work (Fall 2015)

Poliomyelitis in Pakistan

This is a start-class article that I would like to expand. The push to eradicate polio in Pakistan raise many of the questions we have considered in class – that is, the role of NGOs versus government action, interventionism (especially following reports of CIA operatives disguised as health workers), and how cultural beliefs or lore impact and influence capabilities. As of now, the article relies heavily on editorial and news sources, which I will supplement with more scholarly sources. The article mentions “political unrest, poor health infrastructure, and government negligence” as hindrances to polio eradication, but fails to expound upon these factors.

The following are sources I will consult in improving this article:

1. Abimbola S, Malik AU, Mansoor GF. (2013). The Final Push for Polio Eradication: Addressing the Challenge of Violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. PLoS Med 10(10): e1001529. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001529
2. Ahmad, K. (2007). Pakistan struggles to eradicate polio. Lancet Infectious Diseases, 7(4), 247.
3. Bhutta, Z. A. (2013). Conflict and polio: Winning the polio wars. JAMA, 310(9), 905-906.
4. Khan, T., & Qazi, J. (2013). Hurdles to the global antipolio campaign in Pakistan: an outline of the current status and future prospects to achieve a polio free world. Journal of epidemiology and community health, 67(8), 696-702.
5. Modlin, J. F. (2010). The bumpy road to polio eradication. New England Journal of Medicine, 362(25), 2346-2349.
6. Murakami, H., Kobayashi, M., Hachiya, M., Khan, Z. S., Hassan, S. Q., & Sakurada, S. (2014). Refusal of oral polio vaccine in northwestern Pakistan: a qualitative and quantitative study. Vaccine, 32(12), 1382-1387.
7. Mushtaq, M. U., Majrooh, M. A., Ullah, M. Z. S., Akram, J., Siddiqui, A. M., Shad, M. A., ... & Khurshid, U. (2010). Are we doing enough? Evaluation of the Polio Eradication Initiative in a district of Pakistan's Punjab province: a LQAS study. BMC Public Health, 10(1), 60.
8. Mushtaq, M. U., Shahid, U., Majrooh, M. A., Shad, M. A., Siddiqui, A. M., & Akram, J. (2010). From their own perspective-constraints in the Polio Eradication Initiative: perceptions of health workers and managers in a district of Pakistan's Punjab province. BMC international health and human rights, 10(1), 22.
9. Obregón, R., & Waisbord, S. (2010). The complexity of social mobilization in health communication: top-down and bottom-up experiences in polio eradication. Journal of Health Communication, 15(S1), 25-47.
10. Shah, M., Khan, M. K., Shakeel, S., Mahmood, F., Sher, Z., Sarwar, M. B., & Sumrin, A. (2011). Resistance of polio to its eradication in Pakistan. Virol J, 8, 457.