About Alanna

Hi, I'm Alanna, and I'll be your global health blogger for the foreseeable future.

After two weeks of blogging, I thought it was about time we were formally introduced.  We've been discussing abstinence, condoms and abortion when we've never even said hello.

When I meet someone at a conference, here's what I tell them: I have a master's degree in public health with an international health focus. I spent six years living in Central Asia, and I am moving back this month. I spent a year and a half in Cairo, and I was never the same afterward. I've gone to a lot of effort to remain a generalist, picking jobs that let me deal with a wide range of global health topics, instead of becoming a specialist in just one thing. I have worked in disaster relief, health sector reform, and most of the stuff in between. I speak French and Uzbek pretty well, and Russian, Arabic and Urdu pretty badly.

When I make a new friend, I tell them this: I am obsessed with health issues. I ended up getting an MPH because I was just going to read about global health all the time anyway. Doing my degree felt like coming home. I'm pretty good at talking about health to people who really don't care about it. I spend a lot of time convincing friends and colleagues to care. I once ratted out a diploma mill. I've got a healthy almost-three-year-old son, and a terminally ill almost-seventy-year-old father, so I am pretty familiar with the American health care system from a lot of angles. I can talk about global health until the cows and their future clones come home to the underground bunker, so I'm awfully glad someone gave me a blog where I can do so.

Now you know all about me. I'd love it if you'd introduce yourselves in the comments, so I know who I'm writing to. Google analytics can only tell a person so much. Tell me why you're interested in global health, what you'd like to see in the blog, where you come from, what your story is - whatever you think I should know.