Jordan Jarvis is a World Heart Federation Emerging Leader on essential medicines from the 2017 cohort and an editor for the journal ‘Globalization and Health’, currently completing a doctorate in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
In her TED talk on ‘Peer networks to create opportunities & catalyze change’, Jordan speaks about the importance of sharing and creating more equal opportunities across countries to build leadership and expertise to effectively address NCDs, particularly at the training and early-career stage. She saw the importance of this as an intern at the WHO in 2012 and since then was involved in advocacy efforts regarding the WHO policy to pay interns in an effort to create more equal opportunities for young people from diverse countries and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Jordan states: “In too many countries, there is a lack of urgency attributed to improving equitable access to both treatments, as well as preventive measures and environments that will reduce suffering and death from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, mental illness and other NCDs. At the same time, we’ve seen that young people recognize these issues as a grave injustice, and are impatient for change. Young people are not bound by institutional affiliations and old ways of doing things, and have the ability to imagine a world beyond the current structures and systems that no longer serve us. What better group to mobilize and tap into to if we wish to challenge the status quo at global and local levels?”
WHF applauds Jordan in her advocacy efforts and wishes her much success in her future endeavors.
