all Christopher J.L. Murray stories

Investigating health disparities

50443248 — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:46:49 -0400

Addressing health disparities is among the top priorities of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said the agency's director Elias Zerhouni at the second of three Harvard symposia on April 14.
The symposia were convened by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) to involve high-ranking health officials from several countries.

"Health disparities research is something that truly we're just at the beginning of understanding and promoting and stimulating," said Zerhouni. "It will require an integrative approach."

In addition to Zerhouni, the talk featured speakers representing Canada, India, and the Americas. Former HSPH Dean and Harvard Provost Harvey Fineberg, who now heads the Institute of Medicine, served as discussant for a subsequent panel discussion.

New vaccines could balance global burden of disease

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:11:52 -0400

The scientific community believes that diseases that have long plagued the world can be controlled by vaccination. But vaccines won't work unless they reach the people who need them most -- and that means mostly people in poor countries. In two articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Harvard School of Public Health Dean Barry Bloom addresses this problem. Bloom and his colleagues describe the most promising approaches to vaccine development and encourage an international effort for testing and distribution. "AIDS, TB, and malaria are more severe problems in poor countries than in affluent ones, and these diseases have not received an investment in research dollars commensurate with their importance," write Bloom and colleagues Norman Letvin and Stephen Hoffman.