The Department of Global Health held an all-day faculty retreat Feb. 5 at the Talaris Center to explore how center, programs, and initiatives could work together better and launch new collaborations. More than 75 people attended and were given presentations on how people are collaborating across campus and with international partners. David Fleming, director of Public Health King County, gave a rousing speech on the need to work local where health disparities in Southern King County were the same as Kenya.
Faculty gave presentations on how climate change is working with metrics and implementation; how mental health is forming partnerships across campus and is dealing with the stark fact that 85 percent of people with mental illness in the world do not get treatment;  and how the Global Medicines Program to create access to safe medicines is taking off. Presentations were also given on how a new center on maternal/child/adolescent health is now offering an adolescent health course - something not offered until now;  how a growing global health project called START -- Strategic Analysis and Research Training Program or START -- involving students advising the Gates Foundation and others is rising in popularity; and how the International Clinical Research Center has conducted clinical trials involving 10,000 couples throughout Africa. Theo Voss, a new faculty member, gave an overview of the Global Burden of Disease study conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Implementation. And Prof. Dean Jamison gave an overview of the Disease Control Priorties Network.
Department Chair King Holmes gave a great overview of the Department, documenting its rise from, 2007. The Department is now the second biggest department at UW in terms of funding and is the most diverse department on campus representing 277  (41 primary, 21 joint) faculty from 14 of 16 schools and 34 departments.