DGHI20 Reflections: Kathryn Whetten

Kathryn Whetten, Ph.D., remembers the days when Duke professors felt the need to do global health research on the sly. In the early 2000s, Whetten, who was then a professor of public policy, was beginning to expand their research on HIV prevention outside the U.S. But that was not a fact Whetten advertised around the office. 

“The culture of collaboration that I think we all take for granted now didn’t really exist then,” says Whetten, who led Duke’s Cener for Health Policy & Inequalities Research (CHPIR) from 2004 to 2025. “A lot of us were working on the fringes. We had grants and manuscripts that we weren’t even putting on our CVs, because our departments didn’t see any value in that work.”

In 2004, Whetten was invited to join a university steering committee that would begin to change that culture. Formed by Duke’s newly appointed president and chancellor for health affairs – Richard Brodhead and Victor Dzau – along with then-Provost Peter Lange, the group set out to explore the case for launching a formal global health program at Duke. Their June 2005 report enthusiastically endorsed creation of what would become the Duke Global Health Institute, one of the first interdisciplinary academic units committed to global health education and research. 

Whetten became one of DGHI’s first faculty members, teaching global health courses and leading research into the root causes of health disparities in the U.S. and around the world. Their work, which focuses on interventions to improve the well-being of marginalized and vulnerable populations, spans projects in the U.S. Deep South, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, India, Vietnam, Cambodia and Brazil. 

 As part of our DGHI20 Reflections series exploring key moments in DGHI’s history, we spoke with Whetten about the challenges of doing global research before DGHI’s existence and how that original steering committee – which was co-chaired by Duke professors Barton Haynes and Robert Cook-Deegan and included future DGHI faculty John Bartlett and Dennis Clements, among others – laid the groundwork for a new model of global engagement at Duke. 

The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. 

I've heard you say that the creation of DGHI was kind of a happy accident. Can you explain what you mean by that?

So in 2004, there was this extraordinary moment at Duke where you had a new president and a new chancellor of health affairs starting at the same time. And at that time, there had not been a lot of cooperation between the medical side of campus and the university; they operated very independently. And so Peter Lange, who was provost then, was very interested in finding areas where these two new leaders could cooperate. 

As it turns out, Richard Brodhead had just raised money for Yale to start a global health program, and Victor Dzau had mentored Paul Farmer at Harvard. And so there was this common interest in global health, and I think Peter saw that as an opportunity to get them both invested and collaborating in that area. But it could have easily been something else where their interests overlapped. Itmight have been cancer or another area of health research, and if that had been the case, it’s interesting to think about whether we’d be where we are now with global health. 

What was the environment like for faculty who wanted to work globally before DGHI existed?

It wasn’t easy. For one thing, it was much harder to be away from campus for any extended period. You couldn’t just Zoom in for classes or meetings, and there was an expectation that you be present in person for faculty votes and other business. I was trying to cram trips around holidays so that I could get enough time on the ground with my research partners. 

The culture of collaboration that I think we all take for granted now didn’t really exist then. If you were going up for tenure, most departments wouldn’t even let you list papers that were co-authored. And for the kinds of research we do in global and public health, that’s a huge problem. And so a lot of us were working on the fringes. We had grants and manuscripts that we weren’t even putting on our CVs, because our departments didn’t see any value in that work. 

That’s what made it so exciting when Peter formed that first global health committee. We all knew each other, and I think a lot of us felt like outsiders at Duke. We had the worst offices and the worst chances for promotion, and then suddenly there we were sitting in the Allen Building working on a priority project for the provost. 

What was the charge of that committee?

It was to propose a global health institute, although at the time we did not have the institute name. We were still debating structure, and is this a center or a department or something else? I had just become director of the Center for Health Policy, (which later merged with another center to form CHPIR), which was one of the only units at Duke that sat across the campus and medical school, and so that became an important model for us. 

Peter was clear that he wanted these institutes to break down barriers and make it easier for faculty to work together. And so we wanted to make sure every school was really invested. We spent a lot of time talking with the deans to sell this concept and be sure they understood how it could benefit them. We identified the signature research areas that could promote interdisciplinary collaboration, and we targeted partnership locations where there were already faculty working.

But what Peter always said is that ultimately, it was the students who made him want to do it. There was so much demand from students. Even before we created the certificate, Sherryl Broverman and I were each mentoring about a dozen Program II students every year who wanted to build their own major around global health. When we launched the certificate (in spring 2006), we immediately had 100 students in our intro courses. The first year the certificate was offered, I actually taught six classes, because we just didn’t have the faculty yet to meet the student demand. 

How has DGHI lived up to that promise? Is life easier now for people seeking to work on global health issues?

It certainly is, and I think DGHI was a big part of that change. I give a lot of credit to Mike Merson and his leadership team, who really worked hard to ensure DGHI had representation from all of the schools. Mike would show up at faculty meetings all over campus and meet regularly with the deans, and I think that was very important in establishing DGHI as something that spanned the whole campus. 

I’m also really proud of the role CHPIR played in advancing the focus on community-based research and health disparities. When DGHI was formed, we were already doing some of these things at CHPIR, and I think we were able to bring over practices that have helped shape DGHI’s approach. The whole idea of “local is global,”that you can do global health inside the U.S., is something CHPIR had been doing for years with our work on HIV prevention and care in North Carolina and the Deep South. 

The way I see it, if you find a disparity in health outcomes in any group you can identify based on who they are or how they live, the cause is going to be structural. Global health is really about digging into those issues. The boundaries don’t matter. The problems are the same, especially for marginalized groups in the U.S., and so are the strengths and challenges you see in communities. 

So as DGHI turns 20, what stands out to you? What do you think is the most important part of its legacy?

Well, I’m so proud of what we were able to build from the ground up – how this group of faculty who were hiding their global work came together to create this living community. But honestly, I’d have to say it’s the students. The energy and creativity they bring to their work is amazing, and it’s inspiring to see them go out and learn how to engage with communities. Duke is a great research university, but it will always be known best for its education. It’s the students energy and engagement that gets things done and makes things exciting.