Final Steering Committee Meeting and outcomes of NHLBI-UHG global health program
Apr 13-16, 2014, renowned non-communicable disease (NCD) experts and staff from around the world congregated in the city for a big NCD event-- The 9th and Final Semi-Annual Global Health Centers of Excellence Steering Committee Meeting (SCM).
Bethesda, Maryland is a bustling urban community located in Montgomery County in the northwest of Washington, D.C, USA. It is the home of some of the world’s leading research centers, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Apr 13-16, 2014, renowned non-communicable disease (NCD) experts and staff from around the world congregated in the city for a big NCD event-- The 9th and Final Semi-Annual Global Health Centers of Excellence Steering Committee Meeting (SCM).
The Global Health Centers of Excellence (CoEs) is a worldwide network of 11 centers jointly established by National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of NIH and UnitedHealth Group (UHG) in 2009, whose mission is to help combat the rising chronic disease in developing countries, to enable the development of research and training infrastructures and to foster research on new or improved approaches.
As 2014 will be the last year for this 5-year global health initiative, the 9th SCM is convened to not only present each of the center’s research efforts and capacity building, but also acknowledge the network’s great accomplishments of the whole 5 years, and discuss potential collaborations in the future.
Cristina Rabadan-Diehl, Acting Director of the Office of Global Health at NHLBI, and Richard Smith, Director of the UnitedHealth Chronic Disease Initiative, spoke highly of the 5-year achievements made by all of the 11 Centers. Prof. Diehl emphasized that the close collaborations between the Centers were impressive and it was even more gratifying to see that these collaborations would be continued in the future. She also acknowledged the Centers’ endeavor of fostering the young researchers, saying that the Seedgrant projects provided tremendous opportunities for the young fellows to improve themselves.
On behalf of China CoE, Professor Lijing YAN gave report on the Center’s outcome in the past few years. “China CoE received great success with the magnificent guidance and support from our international and domestic stakeholders. Since its inception in 2009, the China CoE has enlarged its team to over 35 staff and kept on strengthening the capacity building. It has in total 20 projects with over 40 journal articles and book/book chapters published and over 50 conference reports presented. China CoE acts effectively to turn the evidences into practice and will continue our work and mission of fighting against NCDs in China.”
Dr. Maoyi TIAN and Cong LI, trainees from the China CoE, presented respectively the research results of 2 seedgrant projects sponsored by NHLBI—“Electronic Decision Support System for Cardiovascular Disease Management in China” and “Verbal Autopsy Using Smartphone for Cause of Death in Salt Reduction Study”. Research studies conducted by China CoE and its local partners, including the flagship China Rural Health Initiative and seedgrants supported by UHG, were exhibited at Poster Sessions together with studies from other 10 Centers.
