Over the past year, the Center for Health and Wellbeing (CHW) has launched several new research and teaching programs in global health. These programs offer new opportunities for students and faculty to engage in the multidisciplinary study of various aspects of global health, and they mark a growing institutional recognition of the need for crosscutting research and teaching to address complex global health problems.

As part of a University-wide Grand Challenges Initiative, in 2007 CHW assumed leadership of a multidisciplinary research and teaching cooperative. Grand Challenges is an integrated research and teaching program designed to promote student involvement and faculty research on three important issues related to the environment, technology, and public policy: global health and infectious disease; rural poverty, land use, biodiversity, and water in Africa; and energy, environment, and security.

The initiative’s health research projects aim to identify methods to prevent, detect, treat, and ultimately eradicate infectious diseases; to provide tools to understand the spread of disease; and to develop strategies for reducing their social and economic costs. This work supports and expands research on infectious disease currently conducted across the University in the natural and social sciences, while simultaneously providing new educational and research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.

CHW has pledged seed funding for eight research projects exploring multi-disciplinary aspects of infectious disease. An anthropology cooperative will examine the future of HIV/AIDS treatment worldwide through a health policy lens. A molecular biology cooperative will use bacterial cell biology to identify new antibiotic drugs and drug targets. An engineering and policy cooperative will develop a community-based enterprise in sub-Saharan Africa to manufacture ceramic water filters designed to reduce health risks due to water-borne disease, and will evaluate the filters’ impact on the community’s health and wealth.

CHW sponsored a panel on the scientific, social, and policy dimensions of antibiotic resistance and their impact on global health at the 2008 Princeton Colloquium on Public and International Affairs “Grand Challenges,” moderated by Anthony So MPA *86 of Duke University’s Program on Global Health and Technology Access. Panelists included Maria Freire of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, Stuart Levy of Tufts University’s Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance, and David Wallinga *94 of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. CDC Director Julie Gerberding presented a keynote speech on infectious disease.

In addition to the Colloquium, in April CHW partnered with the Department of Molecular Biology to host a symposium “No Country Left Behind: Transforming Global Health.” This a multidisciplinary look at global health featured scientific talks on relevant research in the field, as well as a variety of talks focusing on the politics and implementation of effective strategies to bring public and private research institutions together. Intended to stimulate dialogue among students and faculty from a range of academic departments, the event focused on creating dynamic new strategies to eliminate global health disparities. It also doubled as the launch of the inaugural lecture in the Adel Mahmoud series, with a keynote address by Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. A panel discussion also featured former U.S. Senator Bill Frist ’74, currently a visiting lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School; Claire Fraser-Liggett, director of the Institute for Genome Sciences and a professor of medicine at the University of Medicine; and Dr. Andrew Maguire, executive director of the Immunize Every Child Program at the GAVI Alliance.

On the teaching front, WWS’s Master in Public Policy program for doctors begins this fall. This one-year program was created to train students who aspire to careers that blend medicine and public policy in both developed and developing countries. It will provide medical professionals with the tools required to be effective in public sector positions.

New Global Health and Health Policy Certificate Program
Beginning in the fall of 2008, CHW will sponsor a new interdisciplinary certificate program in Global Health and Health Policy open to all Princeton undergraduates. Students in the program will examine key issues in health and related policy in both the domestic and international arenas, such as: the determinants, consequences, and patterns of disease across societies; the role of medical technologies and interventions in health improvements; and the economic, political, and social factors that shape domestic and global public health.

The certificate program will be defined by three key elements: global and local coverage, interdisciplinary education, and experiential learning and field research.

“This new certificate program will enable Princeton undergraduates to explore issues related to public health more comprehensively, while investigating some of the most serious problems of our time,” said Christina Paxson, director of CHW. “The program’s multidisciplinary approach and focus on experiential learning will help students prepare for careers or graduate work in domestic or international health, wellbeing, and health policy.”

The program was created to help Princeton undergraduates investigate some of the critical health issues facing policymakers and the public. For example, in the United States, healthcare spending currently comprises 14 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, and one out of every 10 Americans works in the healthcare sector. While developing countries remain engaged in a long-standing battle against infectious disease and malnutrition, they are simultaneously faced with a growing toll of chronic diseases associated with economic development.

Limited healthcare resources afflict all countries. In the face of scientific advances making it possible to change the face of global health, each nation’s health system will be forced to decide how to allocate its resources equitably and ethically, and how to balance the benefits of technology-enhanced care with its associated costs.

Certificate program students will analyze questions pertinent to these issues, including: What are the politics that underpin the production and dissemination of scientific and biomedical knowledge, as well as the development of new medical technologies? How do patterns of social and economic inclusion and exclusion govern access to such resources and technologies? How do international health issues intersect with issues of national security?

The certificate program will address health and health policy issues in both developing and industrialized countries. Students from all departments are encouraged to apply, to enhance the interdisciplinary nature of the program.

The program will include an experiential learning component to introduce students to real-world health issues and provide opportunities to begin research on relevant topics. All students in the program will complete a summer research project (usually in the form of a research-focused internship or independent research) on a health-related topic in the summer after junior year. The senior thesis—completed in the student’s home department—must address or relate to global health.

The program will prepare students to pursue a wide range of health-related careers after graduation, whether in medicine, scientific research, public health, public policy, law, business, philanthropy, or other fields.

The certificate in Global Health and Health Policy will be overseen by a pair of faculty co-directors representing different disciplines: Thomas Shenk, professor of molecular biology and former chair of that department, and Burton Singer, professor of demography and public affairs. Shenk’s areas of expertise include virology and gene therapy. Singer’s research interests include the demography and biology of aging; mind and body health and its underlying mechanisms; and tropical diseases. Both Shenk and Singer are members of the Institute of Medicine and of the National Academy of Sciences.

Kristina Graff MPA ’05 Returns to WWS as Associate Director of CHW
In November 2007, Kristina Graff MPA ’05 retuned to WWS to join the staff as associate director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing. Graff, who earned a Certificate in Health and Health Policy with her MPA in 2005, will adminster the new undergraduate certificate program in global health and health policy, oversee projects on infectious disease as part of the University’s Grand Challenges initiative, and manage various other aspects of the Center’s ongoing work.

Graff’s past work has focused on health inequities in global and domestic settings, with a heavy emphasis on women’s health. She began her career at EngenderHealth, working on new programs to improve women’s health services in developing countries. In this capacity, she spent time in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and south and southeast Asia. Her early exposure to the complex interrelationships between health, gender, development, and politics led her to WWS, where she focused her studies around these topical areas.

While at WWS, she took a middle year out to intern at a nascent NGO addressing maternal health inequities in Tanzania. Upon completion of the M.P.A. program, she shifted her focus to domestic health issues and spent two years at the New York City Department of Health’s Bureau of Maternal, Infant, and Reproductive Health. Her efforts there were concentrated on school-based programs to prevent teen pregnancy, breastfeeding promotion in public hospitals, and large-scale expansion of a program providing intensive support to high-risk mothers and their infants.

Thrilled to be back at WWS in a capacity that enables her to bridge the local and global dimensions of health, healthcare, and health policy, Graff noted, “At WWS I experienced tremendous academic and personal growth, and the education I received had a profound impact on my understanding of health and wellbeing. I am excited to foster similar growth opportunities for current and future students, and to support ongoing research in these critical areas.”