By BBC World Service
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Anu Anand travels across the globe to investigate how different countries are tackling cancer, one of the world’s biggest killers. In this first of six programmes, Anu travels to the freezing plains of Mongolia to find out why these...
Dr Kevin Fong concludes his exploration of the boundaries between the medical profession and other industries for valuable lessons that might be of use to us all. In this final episode, Kevin talks to people who have spent their...
In the third programme in the series, Dr Kevin Fong explores the concept of ‘lean’ in healthcare. He visits Toyota’s largest car assembly plant in the United States and discovers how the company’s legendary management philosophy – the Toyota Production...
Dr Kevin Fong continues to explore the boundaries between the medical profession and other industries for valuable lessons that might be of use to us all. The second programme recounts the ups and downs of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory....
In a new four-part series for BBC World Service and The Open University, broadcaster and medic Dr Kevin Fong explores what healthcare can learn from other organisations that succeed and fail. In this programme, Kevin joins a helicopter air...
Dr Margarita Holmes is one of the best-known advisers on sex and relationships in the Philippines, drawing on her extensive clinical experience as a psychologist. In this programme she talks to people with HIV/Aids about the ethical and personal dilemmas...
Dr Peter Mugyenyi runs one of Africa’s largest HIV medical research institutes, the Joint Clinical Research Centre in Kampala, which he helped to found in the early years of Uganda’s AIDS epidemic. Uganda was the first African country in which...
Former UK Health Secretary Norman Fowler continues his investigation into what works and what does not when it comes to reducing the rate of HIV/Aids. He travels first to Russia where the infection rate is still rising, mainly among drug...
Former UK Health Secretary Lord Fowler focuses on his own experience. When the virus hit Britain, and despite opposition from then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he pushed through a major public information programme. Now, 30 years later, Lord...
Tony Fauci looks back at the scientific breakthroughs that have transformed HIV/Aids from a death sentence to a disease that can now be treated and prevented. Having watched in horror as his patients quickly died from the disease in the...
A one-off special panel discussion on one of the world’s most complex and devastating food issues: diabetes. Presenter Anu Anand is joined by a panel of experts, food industry players and campaigners as they respond live to questions brought...
Mexicans are the world’s biggest consumers of fizzy drinks, many argue that Mexicans are quite simply addicted to them. They are part of daily life. But Mexico’s government says it is fighting back, and not long ago introduced the first-ever...
Smitha Mundasad visits the Bronx in New York City, one of North America’s poorest and most diverse boroughs. Type 2 diabetes is now so common here that people say every family is touched by the disease. Hispanics, blacks and other...
The tiny, idyllic Pacific islands which make up the Kingdom of Tonga are setting for an unlikely and acute health crisis. With around 90% of Tongans overweight or obese, and with rates of diabetes in adults approaching 40%, Tongans have...
Type 2 diabetes is taking on epidemic proportions around the world, and South Asia is at its epicentre. Presenter Anu Anand travels to Sri Lanka where one in ten adults have type 2 diabetes, and another one in ten...
For a loved one to die is devastating enough. But to lose those closest to us in war or conflict, and not to know where they are or how they died, compounds the grief and hugely complicates the grieving process....
Huge advances in technology now mean people can be kept alive longer, blurring the boundary between life and death. This intensifies the dilemmas for doctors, patients and their families. Different cultures and religions have reacted in a variety of ways...
The truth about mortality is that, when it comes to global figures, it is not known what people die of because more than half of the deaths in the world are not registered. Yet all public health programmes rely on...
Tiny babies are, from birth, active learners. They don’t wait for the world to come to them. Claudia Hammond explores the very latest research about what influences the developing mind of the new born infant. Dr Caspar Addyman from the...
The first 24 hours are the most crucial in their survival for the 15 million premature babies born every year. And the stark truth is that survival depends on where in the world a baby is born. Professor Joy Lawn...
Claudia Hammond exposes a hidden problem which occurs before life has even begun. Nosiphiwo was ostracised by her husband’s family in South Africa after years of trying, in vain, for a baby. Stories like Nosiphiwo’s, of social stigma and even...
In Japan hundreds of thousands of young people withdraw from society for years or even decades. They are known as hikikomori and Claudia Hammond travels to Tokyo to discover more about this mysterious condition and why it is so prevalent...
If you have a mental health problem, where you live in the world makes a big difference to the care you receive. In many lower and middle income countries, three-quarters of people with mental health problems don’t have access to...
July 22, 2011 has been described as the day Norway cried. After detonating a car bomb in Oslo, killing eight and injuring many more, Anders Breivik took a ferry to the island of Utoya. There, dressed as a policeman, he...
Solitary confinement is a form of torture that undermines identity and mental health. In “The Truth About Mental Health - Four Walls” Claudia Hammond talks to ex political prisoners about their experiences and how they dealt with living in such...
It's a common misconception that children, unlike adults, are so resilient that they can bounce back from the emotional and psychological impact of war and conflict. The evidence contradicts this and world experts in the field warn that, while...
From time to time we all find ourselves in some kind of emotional turmoil. But when do everyday anxieties or unusual thoughts tip over into a mental health problem? And who decides what’s normal, and whether a treatment that...
