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COLUMBIA
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New York, NY—Economic progress in developing countries depends on healthy citizens and environments. The Mailman School of Public Health and The Earth Institute at Columbia University are launching the Center for Global Health and Economic Development (CGHED), as a joint venture based at the Mailman School, to mobilize global health programs that help resource-poor countries address the burden of disease. “In this age, people should not be devastated by the disability, misery and death caused by preventable diseases and malnutrition,” said Allan Rosenfield, MD, director of CGHED and dean of the Mailman School. “No country should have its social and economic development efforts compromised because their people are too sick to work or their children are orphaned.” “Global markets by themselves can’t be relied to address the crises of disease and deprivation in the world’s poorest countries,” said Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia, chair of the CGHED Advisory Board, and Special Advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. “The poorest countries can’t make it on their own. They will need help from the international community to fight malnutrition and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. These diseases devastate economies and destabilize societies. Disease control is therefore an economic and security priority, as well as a humanitarian imperative.” CGHED creates an umbrella for numerous ongoing public health initiatives at Columbia’s Mailman School. Through partnerships with the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and private donors, there are a number of existing programs and new programs will be developed to address critical global health issues. Initiatives focus on a wide range of issues, such as AIDS, tuberculosis, maternal mortality, reproductive health, gender equity, sexuality, environmental contamination (arsenic), forced migration and health, assistance and human rights. Ronald J. Waldman, MD, professor of Population and Family Health at the Mailman School and director of the School’s Program on Forced Migration and Health, will serve as CGHED’s deputy director of global health programs and Joseph H. Graziano, PhD, professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School, will coordinate environmental health activities. Mailman School alumnus Joshua Ruxin, MPH ’94, who worked with Professor Sachs on similar projects at Harvard University before both moved to Columbia earlier this year, will manage and implement several new initiatives that focus on helping governments and advisory organizations in developing countries attack preventable diseases and build infrastructures to deliver effective health care services. Current CGHED projects include:
An overarching objective of the Center for Global Health and Economic Development is to promote interdisciplinary collaboration across schools and programs of Columbia’s Health Sciences and main campuses—including research, education, and service programs—in order to improve the health of the world’s poorest people. In addition, the Center will work in close collaboration with a new interdepartmental Masters in Public Health track on global public health that is currently being developed at the Mailman School. “Issues
of global health are at the core of economic development. CGHED initiatives
are focused on helping to scale up successful local initiatives to become
national programs,” stated Dr. Rosenfield. “By linking researchers
with field-based organizations, we can help document successful strategies
and pass the best practices to a new generation of global health leaders.”
For
Immediate Release: November 4, 2002
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