Please join us in congratulating two UW Department of Global Health faculty on receiving 2019 Martin Luther King Jr.
Stefan Wiktor, acting professor of global health at the University of Washington Schools of Public Health and Medicine, has received funding through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to promote HIV prevention and treatment and to help Zimbabwe’s efforts to reach HIV epidemic control. The five-year cooperative agreement, with an annual budget of about $15 million, is administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Samantha Dolan, a PhD student in Implementation Science, has received the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations award to use technology to strengthen health systems aimed at improving data use by healthcare workers in order to increase vaccination uptake amongst children in Kenya.
According to the WHO, the number of people worldwide with diabetes has risen from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. And this number is expected to keep rising, with diabetes prevalence rising more rapidly in low- and middle-income countries. Diabetes can lead to serious health problems, including blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.
For students at the UW Department of Global Health, being a Research Assistant (RA) offers an enriching experience for both personal and professional growth. In 2018, 14 PhD and MPH students are undertaking Research Assistantships. Meet the current UW Department of Global Health batch of RAs, learn about their backgrounds, and get their first-hand perspective of life as an RA.
In 1978, the world’s governments came together and committed to the Alma Ata Declaration – a 20th century milestone in public health to protect and promote the health of all people. In the subsequent four decades, those called to action by the declaration have shown varied levels of commitment to its principles.
Long-time UW partners Ruth Nduati and Dalton Wamalwa, from University of Nairobi (UoN), have received a five-year $3.2 million U.S. grant from NIH Fogarty International Center and The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to reduce the burden of HIV and improve delivery of HIV services in Kenya. The grant focuses on developing innovative, inter-professional programs in research education that target not only students but also health professionals in the Kenya Ministry of Health (MOH) and community teaching hospitals.
By UW SPH
Antiretroviral therapy has helped HIV-positive youth in sub-Saharan Africa to live longer lives and to reach ages at which they are likely to become sexually active. The other side of the coin comes with increased risk of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and some cancers.
UW Department of Global Health researchers presented new HIV prevention findings at the HIV Research for Prevention (HIVR4P 2018) conference in Madrid. HIVR4P is the only global scientific conference focused exclusively on the challenging and fast-growing field of biomedical HIV prevention research. The conference supports global cross-fertilization among research on HIV vaccines, microbicides, PrEP, treatment as prevention, and other biomedical prevention approaches.
Haley Millet, a graduate student in Global Health and Global Studies FLAS Fellow in Swahili, writes from Tanzania: