An Ecological Analysis of Cryptosporidium in Kenya
Led by principle investigator Jeffrey K. Griffiths, MD MPH&TM, the major goal of this research is to map the genotypes of /C. parvum/ isolates found in water, animal feces, and from cases of human diarrhea in a region of Kenya where HIV is prevalent and human-animal contact is frequent (Meru Town and Meru game park, Kenya). Collaborators include the Vice Chancellor of Kenya Methodist University and the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Boston-India Symposium: Essential Interfaces in Public Health
How can U.S. academic institutions connect with their Indian counterparts to promote the application of public health knowledge? And what can U.S. academics learn from Indian colleagues that would made American initiatives relevant in solving global public health problems? ?Boston-India Symposium: Essential Interfaces in Public Health,? a groundbreaking international meeting convened on October 22 and 23, 2007, gathered scholars, professionals and students in public health, medicine, business, communications, technology, policymaking, international relations, and other areas to explore both the vast potential and possible pitfalls of India?s new public health vision. Read the Meeting Report and view video clips to learn more.
Christian Medical College
The Department of Public Health & Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and Christian Medical College/Vellore, in Tamil Nadu, India, have a 35-year history of collaboration in research and education. The combination of excellence in medical research at CMC and the expertise in Infectious Diseases at Tufts has enabled outstanding joint research (primarily in intestinal infectious diseases, and more recently in HIV/AIDS), bilateral exchanges of faculty, and excellent training opportunities in India for Tufts medical and public health students. The culmination of that relationship is the development of a Masters in Public Health (MPH) program in Vellore, with the curriculum jointly developed by Tufts and CMC faculty.
Cryptosporidium in HIV Positive Children in Ecuador
Led by principle investigator Jeffrey K. Griffiths, MD MPH&TM, the major goal of this research is to test the hypothesis that micronutrient interventions will decrease the incidence of diarrheal diseases, and specifically cryptosporidiosis, in HIV seropositive children in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Effectiveness and Cost of HIV Care Delivery and Treatment in Kenya
Dr. Mkaya Mwamburi of the Tufts University School of Medicine is conducting a trial of modified, directly observed therapy for HIV, and determining the cost-effectiveness of this approach. He is also doing qualitative research to determine why some people afflicted with HIV in Kenya may elect not to undergo antiretroviral therapy when it is available. His current focus is in operational and translational research in developing countries.
Global Health Framework Interdisciplinary MPH
This three-year program funded by the National Institutes of Health links all the Tufts graduate schools around the topic of Global Health. The program, which was first held in September of 2006, promotes interdisciplinary education and research at Tufts through a series of workshops. It is designed to integrate Tufts courses with those of institutions in East Africa, and soon in South Africa, India, and other sites, using the curriculum co-development model.
Global Health Interest Group
The premise behind this Tufts University School of Medicine student organization is that students who have a positive experience abroad early in their training are likely to be more sensitive to issues of international health and to engage in such work in the future. The Global Health Interest Group strives to provide a monthly international health series seminar, help students engage in international work after their first year, establish an international summer selective program for first-year students, and encourage students to spend a fourth year rotation abroad.
Global Health Internship at Father Muller Medical College
Father Muller Medical College and the Public Health & Family Medicine Department at TUSM offer Tufts medical and public health students two-month summer fellowships in Mangalore, India. Each summer since 2005, six Tufts students have participated in a rich didactic and clinical program taught by Father Muller faculty. In addition, students visit local hospitals, community health centers, homeopathy clinics and other medical facilities including uniquely Indian health settings such as ashrams and ayurvedic medicine centers.
Global Health Internship in Panama
This program was developed in collaboration with the School of Medicine at Panama University (Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional de Panama). Students are assigned to a community health center in the Panama West Health Area, where they have the opportunity to work as volunteers. Their days are divided between volunteer work and the study of Spanish, with an emphasis on medical terminology.
Global Health Internships in East Africa
This project, based on work conducted by Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths, Associate Professor of Public Health and Family Medicine, places students at the Institute of Public Health at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and the School of Public Health at Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Students function as facilitators, helping faculty at the participating institutions learn how to use Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase (TUSK).
Global Health MPH Concentration
The Global Health Master's Degree in Public Health at Tufts University School of Medicine is designed for students who anticipate studying, identifying, and solving public health problems in a global environment. It seeks to provide students with an interdisciplinary set of skills; to prepare them to recognize biomedical, social, economic, and other factors that affect health; and to identify, design, monitor, and implement interventions that address health disparities. The concentration takes full advantage of the great breadth of global health-related courses and scholarship at Tufts.
Hickey-Peyton International Travel Fellowship
The Hickey-Peyton Travel Fellowship was established through an anonymous gift to the Tufts School of Medicine to support students interested in public health research/activities in international settings. It is hoped that, by taking advantage of this opportunity, students will gain a broader perspective on the roles of public health and medical care practice. Fellowships are awarded annually to first-year medical students.
Innovative Curricula in Water & International Research
The Innovative Curricula in Water & International Research is a five-year NIH-funded "Roadmap" program. Its goal is twofold: to develop and implement a health and water curriculum in the new Tufts University Water: Systems, Science, and Society interdisciplinary program, and to create novel interdisciplinary Internet-based curricula linking Tufts University with East African public health educators, researchers, and institutions.
International Institute for Prosthetic Rehabilitation of Landmine Survivors
The International Institute for Prosthetic Rehabilitation of Landmine Survivors is a Tufts-affiliated non-profit organization which strives to help landmine survivors regain their quality of life. The Institute was founded in April 1998 to contribute to the international effort to rehabilitate amputees, especially civilians, many of whom are children.
International Medical Elective in Nicaragua
Each February, a medical team comprised of approximately 10 TUSM faculty and nurses accompanied by eight fourth year medical students travel to Siuna, Nicaragua in order to provide healthcare and educational information to the local community. Siuna is an impoverished former gold mining town 150 miles east of Managua that is surrounded by farming villages. The trip is in partnership with Bridges to Community, a non-profit organization committed to improving health and well-being in the developing world. Students and faculty spend 24 days in Siuna and its environs, making house calls, working in local clinics and in the hospital, providing direct medical care, teaching patients and learning about health-related problems faced by people in the third world. Prior to the trip, students participate in coursework in tropical diseases, public health issues, heavy metal poisoning (and other illness related to contaminated water), cross cultural medicine, Nicaraguan culture and history. For further questions, please contact Brian Lisse, M.D. at lisse@massmed.org
International Nutrition and HIV Project in Hanoi, Buenos Aires, and Chennai
The Tufts University School of Medicine has established an HIV-related project in Argentina that studies the nutritional and metabolic status of intravenous cocaine users, as well as their co-infection status (i.e., hepatitis B, hepatitis C). This project is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Another project that examines the risk of HIV in non-injecting cocaine users is also submitted.
Niramaya MD/MPH Summer Field Experience
The MPH Program has established a program with Niramaya, a public health non-profit in Mumbai, India that provides medical care and health education/health promotion programs to a rag-pickers colony in the Mumbai slums. This program provides MD/MPH students an opportunity to learn about the health problems specific to urban slums in the developing world and to provide assistance to Niramaya with their data collection and analysis. The contact person is Dr. Anthony Schlaff, Associate Clinical Professor of Public Health and Family Medicine and MPH Program Director.
Office of International Affairs - Tufts University School of Medicine
The International Affairs Office provides orientation to all foreign students and scholars beginning at Tufts University Health Sciences campus or one of its affiliated hospitals. Foreign students and scholars are welcome to visit the IAO for assistance and advice. In addition, the IAO provides training opportunities for foreign health care professionals at Tufts affiliated hospitals, ranging from formal training to observation in various clinical and dental fields.
Pharmacology, interactions between HIV and TB Medications
Led by program investigators Christine Wanke, MD, and David Greenblatt, MD, the program trains individuals in pharamacologic techniques to look at interaction of antiretrovirals with TB therapy. It relies on collaborations with the ICMR TB research institute in Chennai, India.
Probiotics in Growth Faltering in Pakistan
This National Institutes of Health grant to Dr. Christine Wanke supports a collaborative research project examining the feasibility and efficacy of a probiotic intervention to prevent growth faltering in a birth cohort in Karachi, Pakistan. Malnutrition is associated with more than half of the 10 million deaths per year in children under the age of five in the developing world. In areas where breast-feeding is supplemented by additional foods, there is an increased risk of exposure to contaminants that cause diarrheal disease. Many communities in the developing world lack the resources for controlling such illnesses. The project studies the feasibility of using probiotic Lactobacillus GG (LGG) to break the cycle of malnutrition and diarrheal disease in these areas.
Quito Integrated Environment and Policy (QUIEP) Program
This three-year National Institutes of Health-funded program, directed by Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths, represents an international collaboration to encourage research in developing countries on topics that combine the issues of health, environment, and economic development. The goal is to improve understanding of the relationships between these topics and to help guide policy. The program encourages faculty and student exchanges at the Schools of Medicine, Engineering, and Fletcher.
Study of Helicobacter Infection in Quito Children
Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths is Associate Professor of Public Health in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine, and is the Global Health concentration leader in the MPH program. He is currently doing research on natural immunomodulation by agents such as Helicobacter pylori and Toxocara in children in Quito, Ecuador.
Thermo-stable Measles Vaccine Research
In Sub-Saharan Africa, where measles is one of the top killers of children, vaccines are often rendered useless by lack of refrigeration. Led by Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths, an interdisciplinary team from the Famine Center, the School of Veterinary Medicine and the School of Medicine seeks to reverse that trend by developing a heat-resistant measles vaccine.
Vitamin A and Zinc: Prevention of Pneumonia Study
Tufts School of Medicine's Vitamin A and Zinc: Prevention of Pneumonia (VAZPOP) Study, completed in 2004 by primary investigators Simin Meydani and Dr. Jeffrey Griffiths, researched the effectiveness of vitamins A and zinc in treating malnourished children at high altitude in Quito, Ecuador. This four-year, nutritionally stratified, placebo-controlled, double-blind study helped to increase understanding of pneumonia and its treatments, as well as to control respiratory and diarrheal infections, improving the lives of many sick children.
Water: Systems, Science, and Society
Water: Systems, Science, and Society (WSSS) is an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach to managing and understanding the complexity of water issues worldwide. Students who elect to enroll in the program to complement their graduate studies in a related field emerge with both their degree and a WSSS certificate. Students in the WSSS program conduct research and plan projects related to global water issues, take courses and seminars, and undertake a field internship, learning on-site skills from professionals.
