Gillings alumnus Wilson launches Zero TB Cities project
November 2, 2015
Michael Wilson was in Dubai last week to launch the Zero TB Cities project.
The project aims to end the global tuberculosis (TB) epidemic by fighting the disease at the community level in high-burden countries.
Zero TB Cities is a companion initiative for the road map laid out in a recent series by The Lancet. The journal’s collection of publications details scientific, therapeutic and policy plans to stop deaths from TB and change the epidemic’s course — one city at a time.
Wilson is an alumnus of the Department of Health Behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. After receiving a Master of Public Health degree in 2014, he co-founded Advance Access & Delivery (AA&D), the organization behind Zero TB Cities. His founding partners include Tom Nicholson, MIDP, executive director of AA&D, as well as colleagues from Harvard Medical School and Partners In Health.
AA&D was created to address critical challenges in access to medicines and the delivery of comprehensive care, particularly for economically and socially marginalized groups. Its offshoot, Zero TB Cities, specifically utilizes partnerships between activists, researchers, NGOs and healthcare providers to offer a comprehensive spectrum of care for people at all stages of the disease.
While at Gillings, Wilson completed a practicum in Vietnam in which he evaluated the quality and impact of a pediatric eyesight program in a rural area. During his studies, he also was part of a health behavior capstone team that evaluated the effectiveness and reach of Naloxone access policies in North Carolina.
“The technical and team-building skills I learned while at Gillings are pivotal to the work I am doing today,” Wilson said. “The entire Zero TB Cities project is built upon collaborative efforts from experts in academia, industry, local authorities and institutions, and NGOs”.
With over half the global population currently living in cities, municipal authorities are well-positioned to bring about huge changes in population health based on the strength of public sector priorities, their ability to quickly and efficiently mobilize local resources and their proximity to the populations most affected by TB: the poor, marginalized and often overlooked in society.
Chennai, India and Lima, Peru are the first of the Zero TB Cities. Other TB care delivery partnerships currently in talks with the project include Kisumu, Kenya; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Karachi, Pakistan and Vladimir Oblast in Russia.
Read more about the work of AA&D in this story from Harvard Medical School.
Thanks to Wilson’s fellow Gillings School alumna, Kathryn Stein, MPH, for bringing this news to our attention!
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Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications, (919) 962-2600 or dpesci@unc.edu