Section 8 Videos and Web Resources

MATERNAL MORTALITY AND CHILDBIRTH

 

Maternal Mortality Ratio – The World Bank

This site includes graphs of the maternal mortality ratio over time in a variety of countries, as well as graphs of attended births and prenatal care. Other health indicators are also covered. Students can easily compare trends over time in a variety of countries.

 

What’s Behind America’s Rising Maternal Mortality Rate – NPR/ProPublica

This ten-minute radio piece explores why American women die at much higher rates than in other wealthy countries, and why that rate is rising. The touching and well-researched program follows the death of a neonatal nurse as a way to illustrate larger trends.

 

Sister

Following women and health workers in in Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Haiti, this feature-length documentary explores maternal mortality through personal stories. It includes a focus on the structural issues underlying maternal deaths.

 

A Walk to Beautiful

This full-length documentary is about obstetric fistula in Ethiopia. The film follows rural women with fistula who travel to Addis Ababa to get treatment.

 

POPULATION

 

Don’t Panic: The Facts about Population – BBC/Hans Rosling

In this engaging documentary, Hans Rosling uses data to describe population growth over the last thousand years and argues that the view many people hold of population growth in the world is outdated. He explores patterns of resource use and population change globally. Other, shorter videos are also available on the Gapminder website. (1 hour)

 

HIV/AIDS

 

The Lazarus Effect – HBO and (Red)

This moving short film explores the impact of the rollout of anti-retroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa. (30 min)

 

A Closer Walk

This powerful full-length documentary about the global AIDS epidemic follows people living with HIV/AIDS in a variety of contexts across the world. Although some of the facts in this documentary are a bit dated (it was made in 2003, before antiretroviral therapy was available to many people in sub-Saharan Africa), showing segments of the film in class can be a compelling way to illustrate some of the key issues associated with the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.

 

The Bloody Truth

This interactive website (and associated film, Rise of the Killer Virus) takes a historical perspective to tie the rise of HIV to structural issues including colonialism, as well as factors such as blood transfusions and unsterile needles. Students can compare the explanatory framework in this documentary with those in Chapters 27 and 28.

 

Also see the video resources on HIV/AIDS in Sections 1 and 12 of this book.