Global Health Research

Andrew Wooyoung Kim, PhD, knew the COVID-19 pandemic could lead to a global mental health crisis, including among his research participants and staff in South Africa. Kim, a biological anthropologist and 2020 Fogarty Fellow, has conducted research in South Africa since 2017 and lived in the country since August 2019. His research primarily focuses on the intergenerational effects of racial trauma on mental health. As part of his PhD work at Northwestern University, Kim works within the Birth to Twenty study. The study has followed a cohort of South African mother-daughter pairs since the dissolution of apartheid in the early [...]

Jessica Haberer MD, MS believes that strong global health research starts with equitable partnerships. Dr. Haberer is the Director of Research at the Mass General’s Center for Global Health (CGH). She is a leader in HIV/AIDS research—specifically around adherence to antiretrovirals and pre-exposure prophylaxis. Her global health work began in the early 2000’s when she found herself working for the Clinton Foundation in China. There she worked with the Ministry of Health and helped start a pediatrics program focused on HIV medication adherence. “I got asked by some people, ‘Why are you in China? Why aren’t you helping your own [...]

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in globally and in the United States is concentrated in Black communities, among men who have sex with men, and other minority groups. Yet the researchers that study the virus often do not come from these underrepresented groups, but come from more privileged backgrounds. To address this issue, Jessica Haberer, MD, MS, Wafaie W. Fawzi, PhD, MB, BS, and Sherri-Ann Burnett-Bowie, MD, launched the Fostering Diversity in HIV Research Program to provide mentoring and support for researchers from racial and ethnic backgrounds that are underrepresented in medicine.  With support from the National Institutes of Health, the program is [...]