Summer 2024

Ali Mirzazadeh, PhD, MD, MPH, and others were awarded a UCSF grant to study the health and life of Afghan immigrants in California who often experience poor health outcomes due to inadequate access to health services, poor working and housing conditions, discrimination and xenophobia. This pilot study aims to help design interventions that will help Afghan immigrants — and other immigrants — live healthier lives.

Nadia Diamond-Smith, PhD, MSc, and Lucía Abascal Miguel, MD, PhD, MS, of UCSF found that it can. Using culturally and linguistically appropriate videos on Facebook, these researchers increased COVID-19 vaccinations among people in highland Guatemala. They will be testing this same approach for HPV and childhood vaccines. They recently presented their research at the World Bank.

The IGHS Affiliate Program awarded its annual Seed Grants — which prioritize early-stage investigators and proposals with strong LMIC institution/community partnership and collaborator involvement — to Calvin Chiu, PhD, MA, and Alison El Ayadi, ScD, MPH.

Chiu is researching the global inequities in computational resources and language representation in natural language processing research.

El Ayadi is researching knowledge gaps in urinary incontinence in women in East Africa and its impact on women’s physical and psychosocial well-being. 

Address Malata, FAAN, PhD, MSc, longtime IGHS partner, has received the 2024–25 UCSF Presidential Chair Award. Malata is the Vice Chancellor of the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) and was nominated by Kim Baltzell (IGHS) and Jenny Liu (School of Nursing). She will be a Visiting Professor with the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics starting July 1, 2024, and will spearhead the development of a bidirectional global health graduate degree program to advance equity and understanding in global health education. The other two award recipients are Olle ten Cate, PhD; and Loic Yengo, PhD.

Global Action in Nursing (GAIN) has received a two-year gift of $2.7 million of continued support from the Wyss Medical Foundation. This grant will allow GAIN to continue its work of improving maternal and neonatal health outcomes in Liberia, Malawi and Sierra Leone, and expand to a new country — Lesotho. The Foundation has championed this work since 2019. GAIN continues to collaborate closely with Partners In Health (PIH), GAIA Global Health and CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health to improve obstetric outcomes.

UCSF Health & Human Rights Initiative was awarded a two-year, $200,000 Immigrant Assistance Program Grant from the San Francisco Office of Civic Engagement & Immigrant Affairs for its forensic medical and psychological evaluations of immigrants seeking humanitarian protection. 

By Maurice Ramirez

Still of Jemzi Ortiz from Native American Blanket Ceremony video

On May 20, members of the IGHS Master’s class of 2024 and an IGHS PhD student celebrated an early commencement at the UCSF Graduate Division Commencement Ceremony at Herbst Theatre.

Additionally, IGHS Master’s student Jemzi Ortiz was honored at the UCSF Native American Student Blanket Ceremony on May 9. Learn more and watch the video recap of the event. 



IGHS’ official Master’s graduation ceremony will be on July 25 at 11 a.m. in Byers Auditorium, Genentech Hall.

Ashley Mitchell, MPH, Global Action in Nursing Assistant Director of Research and Global Health Sciences doctoral candidate, writes in an op-ed in Rewire News about the language we use to describe vaginal, unmedicated childbirth.

July 22, 2024 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT and July 23, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT

Byers Auditorium, Genentech Hall & Zoom

The IGHS Master of Science in Global Health students will present their comprehensive capstone research projects on July 22 and 23. Outside feedback and participation are welcome. This is a hybrid event and pre-registration is required for attendance on day one and day two via Zoom. 

April to June 2024

Evaluating a Targeted Minimum Loss-Based Estimator for Capture-Recapture Analysis: An Application to HIV Surveillance in San Francisco, California. Am J Epidemiol. 2024 Apr 08. Wesson P, Das M, Chen M, Hsu L, McFarland W, Kennedy E, Jewell NP.

Cost Analysis of Short Messaging Service and Peer Navigator Interventions for Linking and Retaining Adults Recently Diagnosed With HIV in Care in South Africa. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2024 Apr 15. Shade SB, Gutin SA, Agnew E, Grignon JS, Gilmore H, Ratlhagana MJ, Sumitani J, Steward WT, Lippman SA.

Person-centred care (PCC) research in Ghana: a scoping review protocol. BMJ Open. 2024 May 07. Amoh GKA, Addo AK, Odiase O, Tahir P, Getahun M, Aborigo RA, Essuman A, Yawson AE, Essuman VA, Afulani PA. 

A cluster randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of the ‘Caring for Providers to Improve Patient Experience’ intervention on person-centered maternity care in Kenya and Ghana: Study Protocol. Res Sq. 2024 May 10. Afulani PA, Getahun M, Ongeri L, Aborigo R, Kinyua J, Ogolla BA, Okiring J, Moro A, Oluoch I, Dalaba M, Odiase O, Nutor J, Mendes WB, Walker D, Neilands TB.

• Immigrant Health: Bridging Local and Global Health Opportunities with Raul Gutierrez, MD, MPH; Jyothi Marbin, MD; and Zarin Noor, MD, MPH.  
• An Overview of PEPFAR’s HIV Sciences Priorities, with Ingrid Katz, MD, MHS, and Mike Reid, MD, MPH, MA. 

Good turnout for our UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences volunteer event at the National AIDS Memorial today.

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Pilar Deer and Melissa Bacina represented IGHS at the Career Expo, hosted by @UCSF Talent Acquisition. Job seekers who attended the event were from UCSF and outside the University. Over 300 people attended.

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All past IGHS executive directors—Haile Debas, Sir Richard Feachem, Jaime Sepulveda, and George Rutherford (not pictured)—were present to welcome new director Payam Nahid and pass the torch.

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Huge congrats to IGHS Affiliate Rada Savic, PhD, of the School of Pharmacy, whose team has received a $30.8 million grant from the NIH to establish a tuberculosis consortium of preclinical and clinical experts to research the most effective treatment options for future clinical testing.

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