Engineers Are Unsung Heroes Of Global Health

If you consider world well being, who involves your thoughts? I guess you considered docs, nurses, public well being specialists, illness detectives and tutorial researchers. You most likely didn’t consider engineers. That’s as a result of they typically keep out of the limelight, however silently preserve issues powered and operating within the background – from water and sanitation techniques locally, to ventilators and biomedical units in hospitals.

World well being engineering is probably not horny, but it surely saves lives. Take the Covid-19 pandemic for instance. Throughout this disaster, engineers have made large contributions by delivering oxygen, oxygen concentrators, pulse oximeters, ventilators, fast checks, high-filtration masks, air purifiers, vaccine chilly chains, logistics, provide chain administration, cellular apps, information dashboards, amongst others. In some locations, engineers have constructed Covid-19 area hospitals inside days. However we hardly ever see them on nationwide tv.

Engineers are unsung heroes of world well being, and I interviewed 27 engineers, from numerous corners of the world. I needed to raised perceive the work they do, work out what motivates them to tackle world well being challenges in resource-limited settings, and uncover among the obstacles they face in doing world well being work.

All engineers are usually not the identical

The very first thing that struck me is the unimaginable variety of engineering backgrounds. The engineers I interviewed had educated in chemical engineering, electrical engineering, electronics engineering, bioengineering, biomedical engineering, civil engineering, environmental engineering, laptop science, structural engineering, communications engineering, supplies science, and industrial engineering. Apparently, each department of engineering has one thing to supply the sphere of world well being and improvement.

What motivates engineers to concentrate on world well being?

Most engineers don’t work in world well being. They earn more money within the company, large tech, and industrial sectors. So, it’s the distinctive engineer who decides to dedicate their lives to world well being. I requested such engineers about their motivation and inspiration.

Most spoke about the necessity to work on one thing that may be impactful and significant. World well being, it seems, gave them function in life. Some have been impressed by their early experiences in resource-limited settings. Some see social justice as their objective and use engineering to combat for it. Others are attempting to assist their native communities with their engineering skillset.

“Well being is a proper,” mentioned Mimi Alkattan, an environmental engineer, and a Fulbright Pupil Researcher, and former Peace Corps volunteer. “It’s important for me to work on impactful and world issues and to face in solidarity with communities that have well being inequities,” she defined. Proper now, she is measuring antimicrobial resistance pathogens and antibiotics in floor waters in India.

“I dabbled in just a few tech startups, even spent a while on Wall Avenue, however actually linked with the problem of enhancing world well being,” mentioned Jonathan Jackson, founding father of Dimagi. “The concept of constructing tech that was instantly tied to affect for underserved communities instantly clicked for me,” he added. Dimagi builds high-impact digital options that amplify frontline staff and packages.

Elizabeth Tilley is an Affiliate Professor of World Well being Engineering at ETH Zurich. Whereas she was doing her her bachelor’s in environmental engineering, she has the chance to work with an NGO in rural Mexico. A nurse practitioner there confirmed her a giant jar of preserved parasitic worms that she defined had come out of a younger lady. “Realising that folks, kids, might die from not having a rest room appears very cliché now, however on the time it was thoughts blowing,” mentioned Tilley. “I don’t have a non secular background, however I undoubtedly felt that I had a karmic obligation to make use of my very costly, tax-funded training to present again to individuals who didn’t win the beginning lottery,” she added.

Edgar Landivar, {an electrical} engineer in Ecuador, was impressed to work in world well being due to the pandemic. “My nation was hit severely due to the dearth of a great well being system. Inadequate ventilators and the impossibly of speeding manufacturing made me assume we have now an issue within the business,” he mentioned. In the course of the pandemic, Openventi, the mission he was concerned in, delivered 200 low-cost ventilators in Ecuador and Peru.

Some have been impressed by people. Eric Buckley is the Director of Oxygen Engineering at Build Health International (BHI). “My motivation for stepping away from my profession within the company engineering world and becoming a member of BHI got here from studying in regards to the unimaginable work our founder Jim Ansara was in a position to accomplish together with his work with Companions in Well being after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti,” he mentioned.

Jonas Twizeyimana, a biomedical engineer, is a Simulation and Biomedical Technician on the College of World Well being Fairness (UGHE) in Rwanda. “Having learn in regards to the unimaginable work of the Late Dr. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health, and UGHE, I used to be impressed. I felt like I had discovered my function in selling well being on a world scale,” he defined.

Some have been pushed by the necessity to assist their communities. Anpotowin Jensen is a Oglala Lakota and was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. “The Lakota Individuals on our Reservation face rural healthcare points, meals deserts, restricted entry to water and electrical energy and our well being disparities are among the worst and unattended within the nation,” she mentioned. After doing her civil environmental engineering coaching at Stanford college, she is now working for the Worldwide Indian Treaty Council, a nonprofit, Indigenous group, and serving to deal with water high quality considerations.

Manu Prakash, a professor of bioengineering at Stanford College, did his undergraduate engineering coaching in India. After graduate coaching at MIT, he had the chance to go to Sevagram and Gadchiroli in rural India. “This expertise formed my considering round working with communities,” he mentioned. “Rising up with well being desparities and seeing the size of the issues we face, I made an express choice to construct low-tech options that may truly scale,” he added.

Some discovered their ardour throughout fieldwork in resource-limited nations. John Paul Mugo is a civil engineer, at the moment based mostly in Nigeria because the WASH Sector Co-Lead with Norwegian Refugee Council. “My first encounter with a cholera outbreak in South Sudan in 2013, gave me first-hand expertise, of how lack of entry to scrub water, sanitation and information in hygiene impacts folks,” he defined.

Nithya Ramanathan did her graduate area work in rural Bangladesh, utilizing sensors to detect arsenic within the groundwater. Her group determined to transcend measuring arsenic. They labored with engineers to truly construct a deep properly for the neighborhood. “That have motivated me to construct tech and data techniques that preserve lifesaving options in off-grid locations linked and supported for the lengthy haul,” she mentioned. Ramanathan is CEO and Co-Founding father of Nexleaf Analytics, a non-profit know-how firm.

For Rebecca Richards-Kortum, a Professor of Bioengineering at Rice College, a go to to a hospital in Malawi in 2005 modified every thing. “I noticed many items of vital gear that had failed as a result of they weren’t designed to satisfy the wants of a low-resource setting. On the identical time, there have been many infants and youngsters who wanted therapy with that very same gear. I got here again to Rice and informed my group, we’re altering how we take into consideration know-how design,” she mentioned. She is now a part of NEST360, a group of engineers and clinicians from 16 totally different organizations (12 in Africa), working collectively to enhance new child survival in African hospitals by growing and delivering a bundle of inexpensive, efficient applied sciences and companies for newborns.

How do engineers add worth in world well being?

By interviewing engineers, I’ve learnt that there’s just about no space of drugs, healthcare, and public well being that doesn’t require engineering. World well being, specifically, requires frugal innovation to design and make issues work in powerful, under-resourced circumstances. The whole lot is finished on a good funds, and infrequently below nice time stress.

“Engineers have all the time contributed instantly or not directly to well being,” mentioned Bernard Amadei, Professor of Civil Engineering, College of Colorado, Boulder, and Founding President of Engineers Without Borders – USA. “Progress in life expectancy over the previous 100 years might be attributed to many disciplines, together with engineering. The query now’s the right way to contribute to the betterment of 3-4 billion folks whose job is to remain alive on the finish of the day,” he requested.

“Engineers preserve folks from getting sick within the first place,” mentioned Mimi Alkattan. “Engineers work on the setting round us, be it the constructed setting (buildings), infrastructure (water, wastewater, transportation, electrical energy), or pure setting (water, air, soil). By designing methods to maintain these areas clear and protected, engineers are instantly concerned in public well being,” she defined.

“Being an engineer means being a problem-solver and an innovator,” mentioned Tojan Rahhal, President & CEO of Engineering World Well being (EWH), a non-profit. “World well being encompases among the best challenges we face; underserved communities world wide lack fundamental requirements and purposeful gear to deal with sufferers in want,” she defined. EWH is a world group that gives college college students and younger professionals in STEM fields with life-changing instructional experiences repairing medical gear in low-income nations, create locally-sustainable coaching packages for biomedical engineering technicians world wide, and interact the following era of engineers to enhance world well being.

Anoop Jain, an environmental engineer, additionally emphasised the problem-solving means that’s inherent in engineering. “Engineers are educated to resolve advanced issues, and world well being is a sequence of advanced issues,” he mentioned. Jain is Founding-director, Sanitation and Health Rights in India, and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical College. His group goals to finish open defecation and supply clear water to communities in India.

For Chandrasekhar Nair, an engineering in India, inexpensive diagnostics was a method so as to add worth. He developed Truenat, a point-of-care molecular diagnostic platform for detection of infectious ailments in useful resource restricted settings. This platform was just lately endorsed by the WHO for fast detection of tuberculosis, a illness that kills 1.5 million folks yearly. This platform was extensively utilized in India for Covid-19 as properly. “Engineering goes to play a definitive and essential function in drugs,” he predicts.

For Prashant Warier, one other Indian engineer, leveraging synthetic intelligence for healthcare was a path to affect. He helped begin an organization referred to as Qure.ai, a healthcare AI agency that makes use of AI in radiological imaging to assist physicians diagnose ailments rapidly and precisely. “Radiologist information is briefly provide, costly, and inconsistently distributed. Consequently, not all sufferers obtain an applicable and well timed analysis. That is the hole that Qure.ai is filling,” he defined. Their X-ray AI know-how can mechanically interpret X-rays for TB inside seconds, and was additionally endorsed by WHO.

For Linsey Marr, a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, addressing air air pollution, a world drawback, was the way in which so as to add worth. “Clear air and clear water are among the many most simple requirements for good well being. Engineers are those who know the right way to ship clear air and clear water to the worldwide inhabitants,” she mentioned. Her analysis group focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which influenza virus and different pathogens are transferred from one host to a different and what elements have an effect on the effectivity of transmission.

Jean Luc Mpamije, is the Biomedical engineering lead at Companions in Well being, Liberia. “Our work relies in enhancing healthcare know-how techniques, capability constructing of native biomedical technicians in rural and hard-to-reach areas to make sure that important gear and instruments might be maintained and upkept,” he defined. It’s well-known that upkeep of biomedical gear is a serious situation in low-income nations, and it’s by no means straightforward to search out engineers to repair x-ray machines, ventilators, or child incubators. “All sufferers in all places deserve entry to high-quality care, and engineers are a core element of high-quality service supply,” Jean Luc mentioned.

For Manu Prakash, ‘price aware engineers’ grounded with an understanding of context of a well being care supply system have a key function to design options that may be delivered at scale. His lab works on a broad vary of world well being issues reminiscent of diagnostics, illness surveillance and training, specializing in ailments reminiscent of malaria, TB, sexually transmitted illness, and Covid-19. He has additionally popularized the ‘citizen science approach’ – together with a cellphone-based strategy for citizen pushed mapping of mosquito species.

The Covid-19 pandemic uncovered the vital scarcity of oxygen in lots of nations. It isn’t straightforward to neglect the pictures of individuals gasping for oxygen in the course of the Delta wave final 12 months. Eric Buckley of BHI is main a group of over 20 employees members of their effort to extend entry to life saving medical oxygen in communities which have been hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a concentrate on Sub-Saharan Africa, The Caribbean and South America.

Ogehenetga Iortim, a communications engineer, is the CEO and founding father of Gricd, a Nigerian chilly chain know-how firm. “Our work goals to enhance entry to life saving vaccines which can be temperature delicate,” he mentioned. They construct actual time temperature trackers and funky packing containers that protect and guarantee the standard of temperature delicate medicines.

Amy Pickering is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. “Our lab research enteric pathogen environmental transmission pathways in excessive illness burden settings and collaborates with neighborhood companions to develop efficient, equitable, and scalable applied sciences and interventions to interrupt them,” she defined.

Francine Umutesi is Medical Expertise Division Supervisor, Rwanda Biomedical Centre, which ensures availability of healthcare infrastructure and gear. “My contribution was and is to make sure availability of infrastructure and gear when and the place wanted to arrange new Covid-19 isolations or therapy centres throughout the nation,” she mentioned.

Imran Cheema is an assistant professor {of electrical} engineering on the Lahore College of Administration Sciences in Pakistan. His Bio-Agri-Photonics lab is engaged on optical sensors for detecting ailments reminiscent of TB.

Georgia Tech Affiliate Professor Shannon Yee, a mechanical engineer, has developed a brand new, inexpensive bathroom — the Era 2 Reinvented Rest room (G2RT) — as an answer to the world’s sanitation drawback.

What obstacles do engineers face in doing world well being work?

The engineers I interviewed determine a number of obstacles for his or her world well being work. A few of them have been on account of lack of recognition. Engineers are seen as ‘fixers’ doing routine upkeep, and never as innovators or important members of the healthcare group. Some spoke about challenges in securing funding for growing or scaling revolutionary options. Some identified the necessity for engineers to have broader coaching (past simply engineering), in addition to stronger collaborations with clinicians and public well being specialists, to reach world well being.

Most recognized weak infrastructure (e.g. lack of instruments, electrical energy, water, roads, dependable web) and harsh circumstances (e.g. warmth, mud and humidity) as a power situation all of them confronted. “You already know what to do and the right way to do it however you lack the suitable instruments,” mentioned Jonas Twizeyimana.

“Most scientific groups comprise of docs, nurses, anesthetists, however hardly ever will we hear a couple of biomedical engineer who contributed to saving a life,” mentioned Umutesi. “But, we have now seen a few of them doing extraordinary issues particularly in disaster instances. She actually believes better recognition, higher pay, and empowerment of engineers will go a good distance in constructing capability in low-income nations.

June Madete is Senior Lecturer, Division of Electrical and Digital Engineering, Kenyatta College. She did her engineering coaching within the UK earlier than returning to Kenya. “Once I got here again to Kenya, biomedical engineering was all about upkeep. There was no capability for innovation or drawback fixing. That is after I launched into the sphere of capability constructing in R&D which was missing within the area,” she mentioned.

Afua Gyaama Kissi Ampomah is a program officer on the Aquaya Institute overseeing actions in Ghana for the Hilton Africa Water High quality Testing Program. She spoke about lack of assets as a giant barrier. “Some engineering options require large quantity of capital to deploy which most growing nations don’t have,” she mentioned.

Edgar Landivar raised considerations about regulatory processes for medical units. “Rules are set for properly stablished large firms. Firms from growing nations don’t have even an opportunity towards large world corporations when they should get approval for his or her new units. So, there’s an entry barrier for innovation coming from growing nations making an attempt to promote globally,” he defined.

Rebecca Richards-Kortum spoke about crossing “the valley of demise” between a promising prototype and an precise product. “Sadly, there’s a large distinction between want for a brand new product and a market of shoppers who can pay for that product,” she mentioned. “If engineers are going to make a distinction in world well being, we have now to determine the right way to not simply the right way to make promising prototypes however the right way to make merchandise that really attain and assist the sufferers who want higher medical units,” she argued.

Low price, scalable options require great efforts and focus over lengthy time period. Manu Prakash says such work is “both not supported or not on the scale we’d like, when in comparison with excessive margin merchandise which can be very properly supported by the enterprise capital funding neighborhood,” he mentioned.

Imad H. Elhajj is a Professor of Electrical and Laptop Engineering, American College of Beirut. He’s engaged of their Humanitarian Engineering Initiative. In keeping with him, funding channels for world well being are totally different than typical ones in engineering area, and it isn’t straightforward to rent engineers to work on world well being tasks. “World well being isn’t at the moment a profession path that’s seen to engineering college students, though it needs to be,” he mentioned.

“Good engineering is messy and boring and repetitive – getting trash off the streets, getting shit out of pits, and getting a little bit of chlorine into water,” mentioned Elizabeth Tilley. She mentioned such work isn’t more likely to get funded, whereas everyone seems to be eager to fund high-tech, glitzy stuff. “Probably the greatest “interventions” I funded, however needed to cover from the funder, was to purchase new tires for the rubbish truck in Blantyre. If I had proposed a robotic drone to gather trash and forestall illness from spreading from the waste piling up on the streets, I most likely would have gotten the cash,” she mentioned.

Linsey Marr has related ideas. “I believe there’s a lack of know-how of the worth that engineers can contribute towards world well being as a result of most engineers shouldn’t have medical-related coaching and since there’s an affiliation of engineers with whiz-bang know-how, somewhat than with points that don’t seem overtly to be technologically difficult,” she mentioned.

Will Moyo is the Innovation Design Studio Supervisor, Malawi College of Science and Expertise & Rice 360 Institute for World Well being Applied sciences. “There are nonetheless too few ladies in engineering,” she mentioned. “Not solely are younger ladies underrepresented in engineering, additionally they face important challenges in navigating the workspace. There are additionally only a few pathways for informally educated engineers to prototype and take a look at their innovations,” she added.

“We have to do higher at together with men and women of shade, particularly those who have lived experiences of the problems that our work addresses,” mentioned Mimi Alkattan.

Daniel Acosta is an industrial engineer from Colombia, at the moment a PhD pupil on the Division of Environmental & World Well being, School of Public Well being and Well being Professions, College of Florida, the place he’s engaged on veterinary vaccine provide and worth chains. He highlighted that engineers typically lack coaching in social sciences. “If engineers are blind to points reminiscent of gender and intersectionality, our work might inadvertently find yourself exacerbating inequalities in entry to well being,” he mentioned. Certainly, there are examples of AI options that worsen gender and racial biases.

Anoop Jain had related considerations. “World well being is a sequence of advanced issues. However not all of them have technical options. Engineers have to get higher at understanding the social, political, and financial determinants of those advanced issues, and design options that account for these determinants,” he defined. He gave India’s sanitation disaster for instance. It isn’t a technical drawback, however an issue rooted in cultural and social determinants, he argued.

“We’d like T-shaped engineers which have depth of experience in an engineering area (e.g. mechanical or organic engineering) but in addition have broader expertise in different disciplines reminiscent of epidemiology, world well being, product design, economics, city planning, advanced techniques, ethics, human-centered design, and neighborhood engagement,” mentioned Amy Pickering.

Inspiring the following era of engineers

It’s clear that engineers have a lot to supply and add great worth in all areas of world well being and medical care. And there are 1,000,000 issues to resolve, from pandemics to world warming. Absolutely, world well being is a dream alternative for engineering college students who need to see affect of their lifetimes?

However most college students in STEM have little thought about how they’ll become involved in fixing large issues like pandemics or local weather change. Even when they needed to, engineers aren’t inspired to pursue world well being, mentioned Tojan Rahhal. “Frankly, it isn’t often one of the best paying job,” she mentioned. Corporates and industries headhunt good engineers and never many see a profession path in world well being.

“If cash is your primary motivator, the worldwide well being area is probably going not a match,” mentioned Jonathan Jackson. “You have to be intrinsically motivated by social affect, extra so than monetary acquire,” he defined.

Right now, many younger persons are enthusiastic about social affect and are on the lookout for significant profession pathways. Engineers like Manu Prakash are inspiring scores of younger STEM college students through initiatives like Foldscope, and Frugal Science programs. Younger persons are naturally drawn to hackathons and crowd-sourced, open science platforms, eager to assist the place they’ll. Prakash argues that it’s vital that engineers centered on world well being are uncovered to area context early and actually perceive the problem at hand. This requires collaborations between world North and South companions, he says.

And devoted teams reminiscent of Build Health International, Humanitarian Engineering Initiative, Engineering World Health, Engineers Without Borders, Partners in Health, Doctors Without Borders, Dimagi, Nexleaf Analytics, Rice 360, and Prakash Lab are inspiring younger engineers to roll up their sleeves and get engaged in fixing real-life issues that affect hundreds of thousands of individuals in distant and under-served areas.

It is going to be very impactful if mainstream engineering faculties created particular concentrations in world well being engineering to develop the pipeline of younger folks coming into world well being. Applications in high-income nations ought to equitably companion with engineering faculties, medical and public well being faculties in low and middle-income nations or under-served areas, for college kids to study from folks fixing actual issues on the bottom. However, Mimi Alkattan aruges that this must be carried out fastidiously. “Engineers want to look at and handle how their work is perhaps intersecting with saviorism, colonialism, and racism,” she emphasised.

As I wrote in my earlier submit, younger persons are sad with how the world is tackling large crises. World well being engineering provides them a terrific alternative, fairly actually, to not solely restore the damaged world they’re inheriting, however design a greater future for humankind.

Word: I’ve no monetary investments or conflicts with any firm, particular person or entity featured on this piece. I’ve no business affiliations or disclosures.