AUB Faculty of Health Sciences announces $1 million Ford Endowment

The Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) at the American University of Beirut has announced the receipt of a $1 million endowment from the Ford Foundation, culminating a long-time collaboration that started in 1983. This endowment, to be matched by AUB by 2009, is to support the Center for Research on Population and Health (CRPH) and to fund graduate scholarships in public health for regional students.

"The endowment from the Ford Foundation reflects confidence in our achievements and potential and supports FHS regional outreach in public health training and research," said FHS Dean huda Zurayk.

In the five years since its establishment in January 2002, the CRPH has sought to become a center for regional research and outreach on population and health issues. It has initiated research projects that contribute to understanding the health consequences of the dramatic demographic changes taking place in the region. The CRPH has developed the "research working group" concept where affiliate FHS faculty and students, with professors from other faculties at AUB and from national and regional universities, collaborate to explore exciting new areas for research and education. Members of such research working groups represent different disciplines and interests, thereby institutionalizing cooperative scholarship on important issues in the region such as childbirth, youth issues and others. CRPH affiliates have so far succeeded in securing awards for 11 research projects, thus raising the capacity of research at AUB and in collaborating regional institutions.

The CRPH has a computing lab, website, semi-annual newsletter, and a specialized population library. To date, it has acquired almost 50 national-level regional micro data files available for use by faculty and graduate students. The center has instituted a monthly seminar series and has so far invited 50 speakers to give talks about cutting edge research on population, health and socioeconomic issues in Lebanon, the region, and the world. It has also sponsored several seminars and training workshops such as the first annual regional workshop on Urbanization, Poverty and Health (May 2007). The CRPH successfully runs a visiting fellows program, which has hosted a total of 19 researchers from the region to date, thus further strengthening research capacity and regional collaboration.

"This generous endowment will ensure the sustainability of the CRPH and enable it to build on past achievements in research and outreach," said Marwan Khawaja, CRPH director and professor of population health. "The Ford Endowment will also allow us to support regional graduate public health scholarships."

Since 2001, FHS has raised funds to support regional students in order to contribute to training public health professionals from the region. So far, the FHS has supported 23 students from Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Tunis, and Yemen and has also offered nine scholarships to Lebanese physicians to specialize in public health. Almost all regional students have returned to their countries upon graduation and are occupying important public health positions. Increasing financial resources for regional scholarships will enable FHS to attract a greater number of students from the region to join its Graduate Public Health Program.

For more information about the CRPH, visit: http://staff.aub.edu.lb/~webcrph/index.htm

For more information on regional scholarships, visit: http://fhs.aub.edu.lb/admissions/graduate-scholarships.html