John Bartlett, MD, professor of medicine and co-director of the Duke Center for AIDS Research,will become Associate Director of Research at the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI).
“John has been a strong supporter of the Duke Global Health Institute from the outset and we are delighted to have him take on this very vital leadership role” says Michael Merson, MD, director of the institute.
Bartlett, came to Duke as an intern in 1981 and joined the faculty in 1987, studies infectious diseases. He became a professor of medicine at Duke in 2001 and has spent most of the last decade focusing his work in Tanzania through the partnership between Duke and the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC). He and his family have lived in Moshi, Tanzania for the past two years. Bartlett will take up his responsibilities as Associate Director of Research when he returns from Tanzania this summer.
Duke faculty members from every school at Duke are involved in global health research projects in over 20 countries and in the United States. They study topics as varied as AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, dengue fever, environmental child health, pediatric obesity, mental health, orphan care and support, aging, fertility, and poverty alleviation.
“We want to encourage innovation and promote excellence in global health research by supporting these existing initiatives and generating a new portfolio of research projects on emerging global health themes,” says Merson. “John’s passion and expertise will help us focus on these efforts.”
The institute has identified five areas in which it believes Duke’s interdisciplinary approach to studying health disparities could bring exciting new knowledge and perspectives. These areas are obesity and cardiovascular disease, aging, gender and poverty, environmental health, and emerging infections. It has also recently added to its priorities the issue of research to improve the performance of health systems in low and middle income countries.
“The Duke Global Health Institute has a tremendous opportunity and the mandate to generate new knowledge about the prevention and treatment of human illness,” says Bartlett. “We hope to inform health care providers and policy makers with research results that can save lives and reduce the great disparities in health that exist around the world.”
The institute also supports the building of research capacity in several international sites where Duke faculty have ongoing projects with local collaborators, often in partnership with the Hubert Yeargen Center for Global Health. Such efforts are now underway in Tanzania, Uganda, and Haiti and will expand to other low- and middle income countries over the next few years.
“I am very excited to work with the highly accomplished researchers of the University and Medical Center,” says Bartlett. “Together, we aim to make DGHI the catalyst which facilitates and expands global health-related research throughout Duke.”
