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Best Beginnings is the podcast for everyone working in or caring about the early years. Hosted by George Looker, CEO of Babyzone, each episode brings together leading researchers, clinicians, practitioners, policymakers and parents to explore the evidence, ideas and innovations shaping how we support children and families in the UK.
From infant mental health and attachment to workforce challenges and systems change, Best Beginnings goes beyond the headlines to have the conversations that matter most in early childhood.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
Best Beginnings is brought to you by Babyzone, a national charity operating free, evidence-based family hubs across England for families with children aged 0–5.
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:29:15
Unknown
And I went into the hospitals and I went to the clinics, and I was seeing, you know, these wards were full of moms and babies, and they were all, I assumed, availing themselves of this life saving treatment. But as it turned out, when we started to dig a little deeper, what we came to see is that about 20% of the people who were coming in and newly diagnosed with HIV were not actually starting treatment at that time.
00:00:29:17 - 00:00:54:07
Unknown
Welcome to Best Beginnings, a podcast from Baby Zone about what happens in the earliest years of a child's life and why those years matter more than anything else. I'm George Lucker and I'm CEO of babies. Today I'm joined by someone who's spent two decades looking at a question that sits at the heart of everything babies own does. Why don't people use support that's free and available for them?
00:00:54:11 - 00:01:19:19
Unknown
Doctor Ingrid Katz is director of the Yale Institute for Global Health. She trained in infectious diseases and spent 22 years at Harvard Medical School, including the last 16 years as faculty, and has built her career in the perinatal HIV wards and community clinics of Southern Africa. Her research has deepened how we understand what it actually takes to reach vulnerable communities with the care they need.
00:01:19:20 - 00:01:41:24
Unknown
And I think what she's found has profound implications for early years in this country. Ingrid, welcome to Best Beginnings. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for spending some time with us this afternoon. And it's been fascinating hearing about your work with Yale and the the passion that you obviously have for the space that we're working in and talking about today.
00:01:42:01 - 00:01:59:19
Unknown
I guess before we get into the sort of meat the questions that I'm also fascinated, you said you've got a child that's heading off to college this autumn. You spent two decades studying what shapes how children's lives turn out. I guess now you're at a different moment in terms of what that means on the journey as a parent.
00:01:59:20 - 00:02:40:24
Unknown
What does that moment feel like for you holding both of those two things simultaneously? Well, yes it is. It is quite a moment. I feel like we really are on the cusp of a big transition in our own family. And I think, you know, again, when we think about childhood development, each of the stages that they go through is so critical, but particularly those early years, I think back to those times where you can see the inkling of their personality starting to come through and what is possible in communities that are well-resourced, those that are really under-resourced and and the impact that has across generations, not just for that individual and for those children growing
00:02:40:24 - 00:03:03:03
Unknown
up, but across generations. And so I think in many ways, I think about that. And in the embodiment of my own child, the opportunities that he had that others may not have had and his health and well-being is, is it's it's such a core feeling for I think, any parent that you want your child to thrive in the world.
00:03:03:03 - 00:03:26:13
Unknown
And that's something that I think brings us together more than anything. And I find it interesting, as obviously as someone that works a lot with families and young children, but also someone that's got young children my own. As you say, it helps inform the process. Make sure you have some understanding of what families might be going through. And then also from a research perspective, it's interesting sometimes to see these things in the wild.
00:03:26:14 - 00:03:49:12
Unknown
I guess we go back to the beginning, and I think you started your research career in Soweto in southern Africa. What did you see there that changed everything for you and made you such a passionate advocate for this space over the rest of your career? Yeah. Well, so the the perinatal HIV Research Unit is where I actually came to do some of my early work.
00:03:49:17 - 00:04:12:10
Unknown
At that point, I was trained as a physician, so I had done all my clinical training. I had also trained in public health, and I knew about some of the large investments that had been made, particularly in southern Africa and South Africa in particular, to try to rectify some of the incredible wrongs that had been done in terms of medicines access.
00:04:12:10 - 00:04:39:10
Unknown
So at that point, when I came there, a program called PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for Aids relief, had been started in the US government by George W Bush to try to bring antiretroviral therapy to countries where it was needed most and just to frame it out. And again, I think it speaks to these these vexing challenges of inequality at that point in time.
00:04:39:13 - 00:05:05:18
Unknown
We had effective treatment in the United States and in Europe for over a decade. So what essentially was a death sentence previously had changed to a lifelong disease that you would live with and manage and hopefully have a full life expectancy. And that transition had already happened for over a decade in the United States. But in southern Africa, that was not the case.
00:05:05:18 - 00:05:39:03
Unknown
And in fact, we often talk about when we think about these early phases of childhood, right, to see parents, young parents dying from something that could be treatable. And and Doctor Glenda Gray, who is a premier researcher in South Africa, set up the perinatal HIV Research Unit in Soweto, right next to Baragwanath Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in the world, to essentially try to prevent the transmission of mother to child of HIV.
00:05:39:04 - 00:05:59:20
Unknown
And we knew that if women who were pregnant got this medication, it could essentially halt the transmission of this virus. But again, the number of people who died needlessly. I mean, it's just it was so heartbreaking. And when I got there as a young investigator, I thought, oh, you know, this is we finally are rectifying what has been an incredible wrong.
00:05:59:20 - 00:06:27:04
Unknown
And I went into the hospitals and I went to the clinics, and I was seeing, you know, these wards were full of moms and babies, and they were all, I assumed, availing themselves of this life saving treatment. But as it turned out, when we started to dig a little deeper, what we came to see is that about 20% of the people who were coming in and newly diagnosed with HIV were not actually starting treatment at that time.
00:06:27:06 - 00:06:48:01
Unknown
And this to me, just seemed, you know, kind of mind boggling. How could that be? There's treatment, it's free, it's available. Why would you not get on something that would save your life and and prevent HIV transmission to your child? And that became the line of my work for a decade. That's quite a jaw dropping sort of statistic.
00:06:48:01 - 00:07:11:09
Unknown
And preparing for this. That shook me in terms of 1 in 5 people not taking up an opportunity that was readily accessible to them, having had an Aids diagnosis and, you know, not coming back for free treatment, I guess as a researcher, as an investigator, what did that teach you? I guess, about the gap between having a service, having an offering, but actually having people use it?
00:07:11:10 - 00:07:27:11
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, I think this is and it goes to the heart of the work that you all are doing, which is that, you know, if you come in with a very biomedical lens and physicians will do this right, we'll say, well, obviously you're going to get on this medication because this is going to be life saving. You're going to miss a group of people.
00:07:27:11 - 00:07:52:23
Unknown
And often those people are they're highly motivated. They want to live. It's not that they you know, they it's not that they don't even understand the power, but that there are so many forces at play. And in the case of HIV, it was heavily stigmatized. Illness. Right. And I think especially at that time, some of the earlier treatments were did often change body habitus.
00:07:52:24 - 00:08:12:14
Unknown
So when we actually probed a little deeper to ask why they were not starting treatment at that time, many of them said, well, you know, if I'm if I'm seen with a pill bottle, then people will assume I have HIV and I don't want to be known as having HIV, or I've seen people who take this medication and their shape changes.
00:08:12:14 - 00:08:32:18
Unknown
I heard that a lot. Some of them would say, I'm not sick enough yet, and that would often be an indicator of the the deep levels of stigma that they were facing. And so a lot of it, what I came to see is that trust is at the core of almost everything. If we don't have trust, then we cannot deliver the care.
00:08:32:18 - 00:08:53:22
Unknown
That's absolutely critical. And so that was a lot of what they were working towards here with communities. Their trust had been broken because they were not getting the care they needed for a decade when they saw others in the world accessing this. It's so true. And it's something that, again, resonates from the families that we see. We can work out.
00:08:53:22 - 00:09:20:22
Unknown
It's having that consistency of people that they work with and see in our settings that helps early initial conversations, understanding about the family and then building trust. And I guess your work has obviously been around developing those community health systems. And and that is a great vehicle for trust. What did you learn from building those community systems? What led you to find that as the right solution?
00:09:20:22 - 00:09:52:10
Unknown
But then how have you been able to apply that elsewhere? Well, I think it really is. And a lot of my colleagues, particularly those who do what we call qualitative work, which is really speaking with people and asking them what they need most. It became really clear that these community, community health workers, community clubs, sometimes providing care outside of clinics, actually is decreasing the stigma that people might feel right, because a lot of the structural systems that were in place were just deeply stigmatizing.
00:09:52:10 - 00:10:15:11
Unknown
They would explain to us, they would come into a clinic, we would actually have them walk us through. They would map out their journey to getting treatment, and they would explain to us in the earlier days, not now. If you wanted to get treatment, you would go and you would come into a clinic for HIV. You would go sit on the side of the room where everyone living with HIV would sit, and the other people would sit on the other side of the room.
00:10:15:11 - 00:10:42:03
Unknown
It was done for a systems efficiency issue. But what, of course it was saying is, oh, you're on the right side of the room, therefore you're living with HIV. And people understandably didn't want to be in a situation where their neighbor might see them sitting on that side of the room. So it was really coming from them. And I think part of what I learned as a researcher is you really need to be engaged with people closest to the challenge, right?
00:10:42:04 - 00:11:06:17
Unknown
And often those are the people who are facing it themselves, and they are able to convey to you what their barriers are. And so it became clear, and that's been a cornerstone of the HIV response is community based partnerships are so key. That's right. And designing things in the room with the family, with the patient, with the with the community is vital.
00:11:06:23 - 00:11:32:17
Unknown
There's lots of great people that can do work in the abstract, but if you're not on the ground and you're not able to have a face to face conversation and see the lived experience of families, then the chances are that intervention isn't going to have to desired outcome. And I guess, what does that mean for all of us thinking about designing services that want to reach people, want to reach those communities?
00:11:32:18 - 00:12:01:01
Unknown
So you've got work across the globe. How does that lens now frame all the work that you are driving to to ensure that we're meeting those that need access the most? Yeah, I mean, I think it's it's about partnerships and it's about co-creation. So we use co-creation as a core piece of whatever interventions we do. And a lot of the work that I've been in partnership with my collaborators around, it's all co-created from the communities that we are here to serve.
00:12:01:01 - 00:12:26:08
Unknown
And we have used some really interesting design techniques. Actually, designers coming into this space have been really interesting partners for us. They do things called human centered design, where essentially people are coming in and designing their own ideal health care delivery models with us. So we've had communities like men who migrate because South Africa has a large migration population.
00:12:26:08 - 00:12:47:03
Unknown
So we've actually invited men into the room with us, and we give them all sorts of different tools, you know, from kind of different almost kind of architectural tools to design tools. And they have literally created the model of care that they would like to receive. And so this is how you can best embed, I think, with communities.
00:12:47:05 - 00:13:14:21
Unknown
And that's that's really important message. And for all of those that are listening, that are thinking about policy interventions and how we can design, you know, the spaces that most best match what families want, what patients want to really a good way of thinking about the challenge, I guess. Turning now to your current role, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, and you've called this a turning point for the field in terms of the model.
00:13:14:21 - 00:13:52:07
Unknown
You're building that university, convening all of the different researchers, clinicians, policymakers globally, but also grounding it in real world impact. What does your lens on this in terms of from an academic institution? What does good look like in the world that we're in today? Well, I think academic institutions have a critical role to play. And I feel incredibly fortunate to be at Yale, where they have both the awareness that any good work is always cross-disciplinary by nature, and I think a university can bring that to bear.
00:13:52:08 - 00:14:17:24
Unknown
Obviously, many of us who trained in the biomedical space, including myself, I trained at an institution where it was entirely biomedical. And I think really to bring the best solutions to populations, we need to avail themselves of cross-disciplinary expertise. So one of the wonderful, wonderful things about Yale is that we have experts from across disciplines who are eager to collaborate with one another.
00:14:17:24 - 00:14:43:03
Unknown
And again, I think when we think about global health, we think about our most wicked problems. And the best way to address them is through interdisciplinarity. I'm convinced of that. And so I think that's part of my goal at the institute, is to actually think about and engage really the whole university in some of the these areas that really, I think, bring that to bear.
00:14:43:04 - 00:15:04:14
Unknown
Yeah, it sounds wonderful. And we were chatting earlier, you spoke about the university model, including the sort of fourth generation university, one that's measured by impact rather than just kind of research outputs. I guess for any listeners that are hearing that sort of for the first time, what does it mean in practice? What does it mean that you're trying to build there at Yale?
00:15:04:16 - 00:15:37:04
Unknown
Yeah. And again, I think there are some core pieces of every good academic enterprise that involve scholarship knowledge generation. There's a pedagogy and educational mission that all go into a core piece of of any university. And certainly Yale is a place that absolutely, it's foundational to what they do. I think this new space of innovation is one that I think a lot of people are leaning into now.
00:15:37:05 - 00:16:03:10
Unknown
I mean, it's it's almost kind of the future is here, right? And innovation and entrepreneurship is a critical piece of that. So academic institutions, I think, are engaged in this space. We certainly have that at Yale University. We have Yale Ventures, we have Psi City, we have these spaces where young people and faculty can dock in to kind of innovate.
00:16:03:12 - 00:16:34:16
Unknown
I think the opportunity to build that into a model of global health, I think, is critically important. So the fourth generation S has been articulated in in settings that I've seen is essentially elevating and utilizing the knowledge generation hubs that academic institutions are in the applied space through innovation and entrepreneurship. And so that's where I think the connective tissue can be really interesting and abundant, especially now.
00:16:34:19 - 00:17:09:22
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, it sounds profound. And we're obviously constantly looking at partners that look at delivery organizations like ourselves, but also embedding it within innovation and driving great research insights to and that informing the work. And we talk about it. It's a bit of a flywheel in terms of those different elements in forming the next. I guess we sort of flip back to your research in Southern Africa and working with families that were managing their own health needs, while also trying to be good parents.
00:17:09:24 - 00:17:34:02
Unknown
We have a lot of parents that listen to the to this podcast, I guess. What does that dual burden look like up close when you're seeing families that are going through profound struggle, profound change, but also significant health challenges, what did it teach you about what families really need? Yeah, I think my feeling is we're much more bound to one another than one might often think.
00:17:34:02 - 00:18:02:20
Unknown
And I think it's about, you know, our core belief that we want the next generation to thrive. I do think structural forces often mitigate our ability to do what we would hope for our next generation, right? And so when you have a situation where you know you're living in extreme poverty, where, you know, many of us would say you're at the bottom of Maslow's pyramid, right where you're trying to get just basic essentials for your family.
00:18:02:22 - 00:18:33:01
Unknown
It's it's much harder to be conceptualizing some of the things that I think those of us who are fortunate enough to have those resources can consider. And so, you know, as a parent in particular, that is really a time where you can feel these constraints more tightly, right? Because you have that much more to lose if you're not caring for the next generation, but also the constrictions of time and ability to meet the needs of your family tighten.
00:18:33:01 - 00:18:54:04
Unknown
And certainly if you don't have the ecosystem around you to help support you through that, it can be incredibly challenging. Yeah, and it's one of those ones where we have to do as much as we can to break down walls around confidence, but also to give kind of knowledge and information as openly in a sort of accessible way as possible.
00:18:54:06 - 00:19:18:04
Unknown
And I guess one of the other profound challenges in some of the environments that you've worked in is around those communities where health misinformation can spread and sort of reaching parents, perhaps that might not necessarily trust you inherently, or you may need to do some convincing in order for them to engage with you and interact with you. How do you go about confronting that as a challenge?
00:19:18:06 - 00:19:44:11
Unknown
I think it's it's core to everything that we need to think about. I mean, communication is actually one of the things I think about a lot because I think if you have a way to communicate thoughtfully and building in trust into those communication messages, that can change the game for people. And similarly, disinformation can can propagate messages that really run counter to true narrative.
00:19:44:11 - 00:20:15:04
Unknown
And we saw this with Covid, right? We saw almost like an accelerator. And there's always circumstances where there's misinformation out there. But when you put it into the social media landscape and other ways that messages reach people, I mean, it really can fundamentally undermine what we saw, really a public health response. And so and I go back to Covid because, you know, you have what I think is probably one of the most incredible biomedical innovations that came out of that.
00:20:15:05 - 00:20:39:11
Unknown
Right. These vaccines that were developed real time. And then you have the public health response that just could not meet the moment. I really believe that. And so how do we, as people who are invested in public health responses, think much more critically about our communication strategy, building trust, which comes from networks, I think really person to person exchanges.
00:20:39:11 - 00:21:05:10
Unknown
And of course, just the consistency of showing up for people, right? I mean, that is what it's about. And and of course, we've seen the absolute benefits of investments in the biomedical space over decades. That's how we were able to to capitalize on an mRNA vaccine like that. But we also see the challenges of underinvestment in in public health over decades.
00:21:05:11 - 00:21:27:16
Unknown
Right. Public health has not received the resources it needs to to meet those moments. And so when you get to these places where you're you're really up against it, like the pandemic, that's where we will see the breaking point. Yeah. It's a it's a sort of challenging thought to hark back kind of five years ago or so ago, and we were in the midst of the pandemic.
00:21:27:16 - 00:22:02:19
Unknown
And yeah, hopefully those lessons have been learned about investment in public health and continue to be at the forefront. The other element we sort of touched on it earlier was around kind of food insecurity, material deprivation. We know that that's quite commonplace for some of the families that we work with and serve a baby zone. From your experience and the training that you've done, that early deprivation in a family where they've got to under two in the broadest sense, what have you seen in terms of the implications on the long term trajectory of those children?
00:22:02:20 - 00:22:33:02
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, you know, the data are clearly there. I mean, the the impact for children is lifelong. I mean, I think we know this, right? These are there are huge population studies that have shown the impact of nutritional deficiencies, certainly under nourishment. And then of course, living in ecosystems with we talk about often food deserts, but also implications around deprivation writ large.
00:22:33:03 - 00:23:00:21
Unknown
Right. We know from certainly from neuroscientists there's literally can be a rewiring of the brain to have almost this, this sense of scarcity on top of nutritional deficiencies. Right. So again, those early years are so critical for the foundation of health and well-being. And unfortunately, these can be almost intergenerational if we don't intervene. Yeah. Sort of. We profoundly agree.
00:23:01:02 - 00:23:23:18
Unknown
And sort of as we say, it's baked in the evidence. The science is clear. And also the economic impact to on society and for the individual families is also very evident. I guess we're now thinking more broadly around your career in the clinic, in sort of health sites globally, and also in sort of great academic institutions and lecture halls.
00:23:23:19 - 00:23:46:04
Unknown
And so much of that work has started with those earliest moments in life mothers, newborns, perinatal support, those first days of a child's health journey, I guess. What have you learned over the arc of your career in terms of messages that you would pass on to young researcher or practitioner about what really matters when you're engaging families with very young children?
00:23:46:06 - 00:24:14:21
Unknown
Yeah, I, I think I try to approach most situations with humble inquiry. That's what I call it, because I do think, you know, certainly we all bring our specialty, our knowledge to bear. And I feel very fortunate that I've received a great education and have the training I do. But it doesn't mean that I know the most about a lived experience of someone else I'm talking to.
00:24:14:22 - 00:24:41:19
Unknown
And so I do try to approach as an investigator, even now, a space with humble inquiry to learn about someone's lived experience. There's nothing else that I could possibly bring to that that would outpace that or override that. Because often when they tell me things or when they tell my colleagues things, what I hear then is the is are certain themes that emerge, right?
00:24:41:20 - 00:25:12:04
Unknown
And so when you when you approach these conversations, these lines of inquiry with that, then you can build on these things, build on each other. Right. And you start to understand the themes, the barriers that people face. And so I would say to young investigators, young researchers to approach all things, whether they're basic scientists, all the way through to my area, which is much more around implementation science to approach with, with humble inquiry, bring your training with you.
00:25:12:07 - 00:25:32:11
Unknown
But but come with kind of that open curiosity that I think brought us all into these fields in the first place. That's a really nice message, and I guess we've touched on a lot of the challenge and the kind of the difficulties that these families encounter, but also the challenge of understanding global health. What gives you the most hope?
00:25:32:11 - 00:26:01:06
Unknown
What sort of, you know, brings a smile to your face and gives you hope about the next generation of not just academia, but also support in the field for families? I'm incredibly inspired by young people right now. I actually am seeing a remarkable number of young people who are deeply engaged in global health, in public health, in in understanding inequalities.
00:26:01:09 - 00:26:20:04
Unknown
You know, I think back to when I was growing up, and again, my news sources were much smaller because we didn't have the technology we do now. I mean, technology can be a double edged sword as we know, right? I mean, I think as we talked about, misinformation can propagate quickly, but so can a sense of global solidarity.
00:26:20:05 - 00:26:47:12
Unknown
Right now, just it's just a click away to be able to have a conversation with someone on the other side of the world, to start to understand what their lived experience could be, at least initially. Of course, there's nothing that can override a person to person exchange, but at the same time, I'm just amazed at what I'm seeing from young people, even just watching my child and how he's engaged with what's happening in the world.
00:26:47:13 - 00:27:18:20
Unknown
He's deeply invested in the outcome. And so I I'm holding out great hope. But we do need to, as slightly older adults, show up for them. You know, we really I think it's critically important that we show them pathways forward for future careers and how they can continue to make a difference. What's been the piece of research or the conversation that you've had with the family that's most surprised you, that took you off guard and really challenged the sort of thinking that you had previously?
00:27:18:21 - 00:27:26:18
Unknown
Has there been any sort of particular moments that stick out, that go, oh, that changed your way of thinking?
00:27:26:20 - 00:27:53:24
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, I think as we spoke about, you know, certainly I was surprised when I began to understand how common it was for people who, you know, again, this was 20 years ago. But when I came to South Africa who were living with HIV, presenting to care, getting tested, found out they had an Aids diagnosis and did not get the treatment that they needed.
00:27:54:05 - 00:28:20:12
Unknown
And that has changed. That has improved. I think my my sense as a physician, you know, really changed quickly when I started to speak with people, because a lot of the people that, you know, we see, especially in rapid clinic visits, you know, we were trying to make a quick diagnosis. We're trying to understand what's happening, and we're trying to give them therapeutics to address it.
00:28:20:13 - 00:28:52:15
Unknown
Right. It is so rare in in a biomedical ecosystem that you have time to actually understand the full arc of someone's life that brought them to a decision point, right? And so when I had a conversation, I remember this. I remember this so clearly. I was I came into a physician's room who was seeing a patient who had had initially known that she was living with HIV, a young woman, a recent mom who was decided to come back and start treatment.
00:28:52:15 - 00:29:11:18
Unknown
And she knew she had HIV for a few years, but had not started treatment and was eligible. And I remember watching this interaction and then having a conversation with her myself and trying to understand what was happening for her. And I remember the physician said, have you tried other things to try to stay healthy? And she said, yes, there.
00:29:11:18 - 00:29:35:21
Unknown
Actually, I have them in my pocket. And she started pulling out various things that she had. Some were pills, like garlic pills and other things that, you know, maybe have been propagated around misinformation. And this was a while ago, right? This was almost 20 years ago, and it made it so clear to me that she had been the recipient of so much misinformation.
00:29:35:22 - 00:29:59:15
Unknown
And because she lived in a in an ecosystem that was really constrained economically, that she also reported that she faced such deep stigma as a new mother. Right. I mean, you couldn't possibly be sick. There was no time for that, right? You had to show up for your baby. She was also trying to earn money to keep her family afloat.
00:29:59:16 - 00:30:20:19
Unknown
Right. There were so many forces at play for her, and she just tried to get the thing that she thought would keep her alive and keep her safe. And also the fact that she didn't feel safe actually carrying a pill bottle because she felt like people would judge her, or worse, right, that she could actually be subjected to violence.
00:30:20:21 - 00:30:41:21
Unknown
It just showed me, you know, in those little minute interactions that I have as a physician in my office where I'm just I'm having a conversation for 15 minutes, it is so hard to understand the full arc of a decision that someone might make where I think, oh, of course you're going to take this medication. It's life saving.
00:30:41:23 - 00:31:05:01
Unknown
There are so many reasons, all extremely reasonable in her world, to not take it. And so I think it showed me honestly, as a physician and as anyone in the health care provision space, that we need to do better to understand people's lives. It's so important to realize that there's so many different factors that are impacting the mum.
00:31:05:01 - 00:31:44:10
Unknown
That shows up to one of our hubs with a two year old that has got, you know, potentially very chaotic life at home, struggles with accessibility from a public transport standpoint, but also, as you say, has a wide array of information sources, very few of them providing kind of evidence informed, high quality content. So, you know, funny how that challenge that you described and obviously incredibly profound in the scenario that you spoke to, but still exists today, maybe in slightly different shapes and forms, I guess, you know, what does that mean for the Yale Institute for Global Health?
00:31:44:10 - 00:32:10:23
Unknown
What does success look like in terms of perhaps trying to challenge the narrative or challenge uptake in parts of the world, and maybe sort of change the way that delivery is done in terms of ensuring that community health interventions, rather than another type of delivery is focused on. Yeah, I mean, I think we're very fortunate that we have so many faculty who are engaged in this space across disciplines.
00:32:10:24 - 00:32:38:20
Unknown
Right. So across, of course, infectious diseases, areas that I think a lot about us in infectious diseases physician myself, but also non-communicable diseases. Right. Because I think also we see an epidemic of chronic disease all over the world, right? From diabetes to heart disease to cancers. And so I think we have a huge, as I say in the sports world, a deep bench of expertise at Yale.
00:32:38:20 - 00:33:09:13
Unknown
And I think our job as an institute is to continue to elevate that and continue to support, provide essentially a platform for cross-disciplinary collaboration and not just for faculty, but also, again, to bring in students and and be a connector. Right? I see us, as I was saying earlier, we I see us as having two missions. One is a service to the university for people who want to engage in global health, but also to the world.
00:33:09:13 - 00:33:36:03
Unknown
And that's where I think we can move from knowledge generation to translation to hopefully impact. I think there's no one I work with who doesn't want to see do impactful work. None of us want to write up a study and have it stick on a shelf. We are really people who work in my space very much lean into the application of the work, so we do the foundational work to then see it applied.
00:33:36:03 - 00:33:59:04
Unknown
And I think there's nothing that that brings that to the for more than, than cross-disciplinary partnerships and hopefully partnerships with other academic institutions around the world. Well, we wish you the greatest of luck in those endeavors and look forward to seeing the real impact on the ground for families across the world, globally and potentially here in the UK as well.
00:33:59:04 - 00:34:22:22
Unknown
In terms of sharing some of the learnings and evidence that you're creating. I guess to close, you know, we have quite a few parents that listen to to the podcast. Do you have a sort of piece of advice you might have for our parents? They've got a two year old at home or a young one. What piece of advice would you give them to hold on to, given what you've learned in this field?
00:34:22:24 - 00:34:44:15
Unknown
Well, I would say, first of all, as a parent, as a parent myself, and I remember those days, they were not that long ago with an early child. I would I would certainly offer yourself grace because parenting is a journey. It's a humbling one. And it's it's important to to give yourself grace as you walk through this. Because it is it is challenging.
00:34:44:15 - 00:35:15:08
Unknown
Also, I would say it's not a solo endeavor. It should never be. And I think when you veil yourselves of opportunities to be connected to others who could help support you, you should. You should do that. I think it's so wonderful to see people like you all who are engaged in this space, to support parents as they are moving through these journeys of those early years, and I think we as a society, need to continue to show up for parents in this phase of life.
00:35:15:08 - 00:35:34:00
Unknown
It's one of the most critically important. And I hope that, you know, again, parents shouldn't be afraid to advocate for themselves, but we also, as a collective should, should continue to work on showing up for them. All right. Thank you. Doctor Katz has been brilliant chatting to you this afternoon. Really appreciate your time. Thank you for having me.
00:35:34:02 - 00:35:56:14
Unknown
Doctor Katz, what strikes me listening to you is the question you've spent nearly 20 years pursuing. Why don't people always use the support that's right there for them? And it turns out to be one of the most important questions anyone working with families can ask. What your research has found is in some of those most challenging settings in the world, it speaks directly to what we're trying to do every day at baby's Own.
00:35:56:15 - 00:36:20:08
Unknown
Show up, build trust, and build a community. Removing that stigma. That is a really powerful thing. What I take from the conversation is the need to figure out how we close that gap, how we build trust, and how we help different organizations work together and support. Make it used the evidence from some of the hardest places in the world to deliver healthcare shows us.
00:36:20:08 - 00:36:40:23
Unknown
It shows us how we can fix it. Free isn't enough. Present isn't enough. You have to spend time. You have to earn that relationship. If today's conversation is stayed with you, please subscribe to Best Beginnings or wherever you get your podcasts and share this episode with someone working in the early years. Who needs to hear it? See you next time.