NIH Center Sets New Goals for Global Health Research and Training

Global health research and training efforts should focus on combatting the growing epidemic of noncommunicable diseases, better incorporating information technology into research and training, and more effectively converting scientific discoveries into practice in low-resource settings, according to the Fogarty International Center’s new strategic plan, released today. Fogarty is the component of the National Institutes of Health solely focused on supporting global health research and training, and coordinating international research partnerships across the agency.

As research discoveries and aid efforts have reduced deaths from HIV/AIDS, populations in the developing world are increasingly suffering from noncommunicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and mental illness.

“It is critical that we leverage the existing HIV research and care delivery platform to build the capacity needed to stem the tide of these new disease epidemics,” said Dr Roger I. Glass, who leads Fogarty and serves as the NIH associate director for global health research. “We must focus our attention on these pressing problems, which also plague us in the US, and discover new ways to prevent and treat them. Today, global health and local health are becoming one and the same and research anywhere can help people everywhere.”

Fogarty plans to reinvigorate its efforts to train more developing-country scientists in these new areas of global health, where the field is moving and where the most interesting discoveries are yet to be made, according to the plan.

“Our concept of investing in training outstanding young investigators, both US and foreign, and linking them early in their careers in research partnerships between their institutions has been a winning strategy that has had a major impact on the research enterprise for global engagement,” said Glass.

To read more, click here.