Faust Urges Global Health Focus at Harvard

University President Drew G. Faust announced last week that she would elevate global health to a University-wide priority with the promotion of the Harvard Institute for Global Health (HIGH) to permanent institute status.

Faust also announced the appointment of Public Health professor Sue J. Goldie as the director of the Institute, calling the change a “moment of special possibility for global health, both in the world and here at Harvard.”

HIGH seeks to train individuals interested in the field of public health, conduct research, and encourage engagement with issues in the field.

Harvard’s many different units engage with issues relevant to global health on a daily basis—whether researching the effects of HIV/AIDS in Botswana, training doctors in Cambridge, or making research available to policy makers.

This latest effort aims to bring together those units into a more cohesive whole.

“What Harvard brings to the table is the unique ability to leverage the breadth, scope and strength of the University to establish a ‘field of global health,’” HSPH Dean Julio Frenk wrote in the Institute’s annual report for 2009.

Recent years have seen an uptick in activity at the University surrounding global health.

In 2007, the University approved a secondary field in health policy for undergraduates, and during the same period, the number of courses offered in the field markedly increased.

Earlier this year, the University rallied around relief efforts in Haiti, in large part driven by the work of Professor Paul E. Farmer, whose non-profit Partners In Health played a key role in providing health care for victims of January’s earthquake.

Farmer will help lead HIGH’s professional training and education programs.

Faust has often said that she hopes to break down barriers among units across the University.

Last week’s initiative is emblematic of that effort, seeking to bring together different disciplines, schools, and departments to tackle global health.

“We need to support the very best researchers and the work of our outstanding faculty, in fields stretching across the spectrum of inquiry from immunology to epidemiology, health policy, history, molecular biology, and philosophy,” Faust wrote in the press release.

“We’re better when we’re more integrated as opposed to less integrated,” said professor David M. Cutler ’87, who will direct undergraduate and graduate programs in global health for the Institute. “That’s what we have to do.”

—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached at egroll@fas.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: May 24, 2010

An earlier version of the May 24 news article "Faust Urges Global Health Focus at Harvard" incorrectly identified Professor Paul E. Farmer as Paul J. Farmer.