New Approaches to Security and Global Health Challenges

The Belfer Center recently launched the Security and Global Health Project (SAGH), an initiative aimed at generating new approaches to global health security threats. The project is chaired by Senior Belfer Lecturer in International Security and former Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Juliette Kayyem.

The Security and Global Health Project’s mission is to conduct and disseminate policy-relevant research and training on issues critical to global health security, such as threats from bioterrorism, pandemics, armed conflict, climate-related natural disasters, and mass migration. Through fellowships, seminars, research, and training, the project will bring together academics and policymakers to generate new approaches to prepare, prevent, mitigate, and respond to these threats.

“Global health threats are essentially security challenges,” said Kayyem. “This is an exciting effort that will leverage the expertise at Harvard and beyond to address a challenge that cannot be neglected.”

Drawing on the vast experience across Harvard University’s graduate programs, research facilities, and partnerships, the project plans to produce collaborative research and policy analysis, and deliver training and service opportunities unique to the emerging field of health security. This year, the Security and Global Health Project will focus on three areas:

• Health Intelligence and Misinformation: A New Weapon of Mass Destruction?
• The First Line of Defense: Preventing Health System Collapse During Crisis
• Managing a Security Response to Ebola Epidemics: Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo

Margaret Bourdeaux, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health & Social Change and the Global Health Equity Division of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who also founded the Threatened Health System Project, will lead SAGH research efforts as Research Director.

Read more about the project at belfercenter.org/SAGH