Students win Global Health Council's ‘New Investigators’ awards
| April 29, 2010 | |
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Research addressing sexuality and public health, conducted by three UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health graduate students, has been selected for presentation at the Global Health Council‘s 2010 conference.
Diana Michel and Joshua Davis
Joshua Davis and Diana Michel, master’s students in health policy and management, received the Council’s New Investigator in Global Health award for Davis’ abstract of their research, “Cost Effectiveness of Male Versus Female Sterilization in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Quoc Nguyen, MD, MPH, doctoral student in epidemiology, won a New Investigator in Global Health award for his research showing “Results of an MSM (men who have sex with men) Internet Survey in Vietnam.”
Davis and Nguyen were two of 30 students, selected from 338 submissions, invited to present research at the Council’s annual International Conference on Global Health June 14-18 in Washington, D.C.
“Going to the conference will be a great experience for me, personally and professionally,” Davis said. “I look forward to interacting with other members of the panel and learning more about global health issues.”
“Our research is important because there has been none like it in the developing world,” Michel said. “Also, our results are very different from those in the developed world; thus, we would like to see more research in the field to substantiate our findings.”
Dr. Quoc Nguyen is pictured here during a trip to Vietnam. Photo courtesy Nguyen Truong Quy.
Because of culture and fear of stigmatization, Nguyen said, many Vietnamese men who have sex with men hide their sexual identities and behaviors. Therefore, little is known about this population in Vietnam. There have been many HIV prevention programs in Vietnam, Nguyen said, but not much attention has been paid to MSM.
His study, he says, “is the first to report sociodemographics, sexual identities and sexual behaviors of MSM in Vietnam who use the Internet. The results suggest that [members of this group] have many behaviors that might put them at risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV. This information suggests an urgent need to scale up HIV intervention for MSM in Vietnam.”
Established in 1972, the Global Health Council aims to identify priority world health problems and report on them to the U.S. public, legislators, international and domestic government agencies, academic institutions and the global health community.
Its New Investigators in Global Health Program was launched in 2005 to highlight exemplary research, policy and advocacy initiatives of new and future leaders in global health and to empower participants with global health advocacy skills. The competitive abstract review process is open to all undergraduate, graduate and medical students engaging in research, policy and advocacy initiatives relating to global health.
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UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu. |
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