SESRIC and Harvard School of Public Health Discussed Potential for Future Cooperation on Health Front
Date: 22 March 2012
Venue: Boston - USA -

SESRIC Director-General, Dr. Savaş Alpay, visited the Global Health and Population Department at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) on March 22nd, 2012, at its headquarters in Boston, USA. The Department was represented by Mr. Wafaie Fawzi, Department Chair and Professor of Population Sciences, Nutrition, Epidemiology, and Global Health.

Under the leadership of Prof. Wafaie Fawzi, the Department of Global Health and Population seeks to improve global health through education, research, and service from a population-based perspective. In particular, the Department brings together disciplinary expertise in many areas to leverage different perspectives and approaches to global health issues. By doing so, it aims to achieve a deeper understanding of, and make significant contributions to, the “research-policy-implementation” cycle for the multi-faceted fields of global health and population.

Dr. Alpay’s visit to HSPH aimed to explore the potential ways and means of increasing the level of cooperation between SESRIC and HSPH. After briefing Prof. Fawzi on the activities of SESRIC in the areas of statistics, research and capacity building, Dr. Alpay pointed out that the Centre had started playing an increasingly higher role in the area of health in the OIC sphere through its engagement in extensive policy-oriented research on health-related developments in OIC member countries. He further informed Prof. Fawzi that the Centre had published the “OIC Health Report 2011” as a comprehensive assessment of the current state of health situation and health coverage in OIC member countries. The Report comes with a set of broad policy recommendations pertaining to the issues such as health financing, health capacity building, health infrastructure development, health reforms as well as compliance with international health regulations.

Prof. Fawzi expressed his satisfaction and appreciation of the studies undertaken by the Centre in the area of health and added that the Department of Global Health and Population, as well as other departments at the HSPH at large, are open to discuss further issues that would help activate a better cooperation on the issues that top the Centre’s health agenda.