Duke to Launch Global Health Institute at Symposium
By Jeff Molter, Duke University Medical Center News Office
April 10, 2006
Duke University will soon create a new Global Health Institute to promote education, research and service in health care to underserved populations locally, regionally and around the world.
The Institute will unite the efforts of faculty, administrators and students across all campuses and centers. The initiative draws on Duke's strength in interdisciplinary research to build a program that spans medicine, humanities, social sciences, engineering, environment, law, divinity and the life sciences.
Duke University President Richard Brodhead and Health Affairs Chancellor Victor Dzau, M.D. will launch the Duke Global Health Institute during a two-day symposium featuring international experts in global health issues. The symposium will also highlight Duke's ongoing efforts in addressing global health and health disparities.
For more information and a detailed schedule of events, please visit http://globalhealth.duke.edu/symposium.html.
The symposium begins the evening of Monday, April 17, at 4:30 p.m. in the Nasher Museum of Art auditorium. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will present a talk entitled "Global Health Challenges for the 21st Century." A reception and poster session featuring current and proposed activities in global health by Duke faculty and students will follow the talk.
The symposium continues on Tuesday, April 18, at 8:30 a.m. in the Schiciano auditorium of Duke's CIEMAS building. The morning session features three international experts in global health issues: Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health; Joep Lange, former president of the International AIDS Society; and Amartya Sen, 1998 Nobel Prize winner in economics. Each will present their perspective on the challenges of health disparities in our world today.
The roll-out of the Duke Global Health Institute begins at 1:30 p.m. in the Schiciano auditorium. The session features remarks from President Brodhead, Chancellor Dzau and Barton Haynes, M.D., director of the Center for HIV-AIDS Vaccine Immunology. A panel of Duke faculty will then discuss their schools' efforts in developing global health agendas for education, research and service.
President Brodhead identified global health as a major priority for Duke at the beginning of the 2005 academic year. There are three main planning areas:
- A body charged with identifying focus areas for global health as it relates to scholarship, research, policy development and service.
- A group that will focus on practical ways to improve the health status of people in underserved and under-resourced areas in Durham and around the world.
- A committee to examine how to develop courses, certificates and curricula that will exposure all students to the issues of global health and health disparities and provide opportunities for future leaders to improve the quality of health for others.