Global Health Research

Factors that support health and health-delivery systems are complex and embedded in cultural, linguistic, social, economic, political, historical and environmental contexts that cross traditional academic disciplines. Interdisciplinary teams at IU School of Medicine are exploring complex health problems throughout the world in an effort to address them and improve population health.

With more than $40 million in research funding and over 50 active research protocols with international partners, IU School of Medicine has one of the strongest global health research programs in the United States. Sharing a vision to eliminate health disparities and improve the health of people in resource-limited settings, both in Indiana and around the world, these investigators generate evidence about what works in health care in order to influence policies that save lives.

The IU Center for Global Health, directed by Adrian Gardner, MD, supports global health research that improve health in under-served communities and prepares the next generation of health leaders. Kara Wools-Kaloustian, MD, leads the Center’s global health research programs, including a robust research infrastructure built around IU School of Medicine’s signature alliance: AMPATH.

IU School of Medicine faculty co-direct the AMPATH Research Network, which includes more than 70 active studies and collaborators from 20 institutions in North America, Europe and East Africa. The AMPATH Research Network seeks to improve the health of the people in Kenya and other resource-limited settings through the identification, development and dissemination of information about health and health care systems. Since forming in 1998, the network has received nearly $142 million in cumulative direct research awards from the NIH, CDC, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, and others.

IU School of Medicine leads the East Africa International Epidemiology Database to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) consortium, one of seven regional data centers funded by the NIH to provide a rich resource for globally diverse HIV/AIDS data. Led by Kara Wools-Kaloustian, MD (School of Medicine), in partnership with Constantin Yiannoutsos, PhD (Fairbanks School of Public Health), IeDEA offers expertise in merging, sharing and analyzing routine data collected within HIV care and treatment programs as well as in the design, conduct and analysis of implementation research.

Led by Kara Wools-Kaloustian, MD, this multidisciplinary training program, funded by the National Institute of Health, trains MD and PhD scientists for projective and sustainable careers in research related to sexually transmitted infections and other infections of global health significance. This grant also ensures that research fellows receive training in the practices, procedures and languages of collaboration necessary for creating and working in a productive team (team science). Graduates are expected to assume positions in academic institutions, government or industry related to addressing infectious diseases of global health significance.

IU School of Medicine faculty, in collaboration with Moi University faculty, have contributed significantly to the Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research, which is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development to conduct clinical studies in low-resource countries to improve health and well-being of mothers and children. Edward Liechty, MD, emeritus professor of pediatrics (IU School of Medicine), is the US-based principal investigator, and Sherri Bucher, PhD, is US-based co-principal investigator of the IU-Kenya Global Network site; Fabian Esamai, MB ChB, MMed, MPH, PhD (Moi University), serves as the senior foreign investigator. Their clinical trial site for maternal-newborn-child health research includes eight geographical clusters in three counties of rural Western Kenya. The team has contributed to international trials and added nearly 93,000 subjects to the Maternal Neonatal Health Registry database — one of the largest prospective, population-based registries for mother-baby pairs in the world.

This IU School of Medicine research unit is a national leader in global pediatric infectious disease research. Led by Chandy John, MD, a cadre of IU School of Medicine investigators are helping to solve infectious disease problems created by malaria and HIV. Malaria research focuses on parasite and host factors that lead severe malaria in children, complications of severe malaria, and effects of changing transmission on malaria immunity. HIV research focuses on adherence to HIV medications, stigma in HIV, evaluation and treatment of HIV in adolescents, and neurodevelopmental impairment in infants exposed to HIV.

Since 2016, the IU Center for Global Health, with support from the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI), has awarded grants to encourage global health research among CTSI institutions. In the 2019-2020 round of funding, the Indiana CTSI Global Health Grants program focused on Reciprocal Innovation (RI). RI is the bi-directional and iterative exchange of a technology, methodology or process between at least two countries, one lower or middle-income country and one high-income country, to address a common health challenge and provide mutual benefit to both sides. Lessons learned are continually shared throughout the process to suit the needs and infrastructure of each country.