Former World Health Organization official, former Minister of Health for Mexico to take helm in 2009

Dr. Frenk's remarks at a reception held in his honor on Sept. 5, 2008.

A transcript of Dr. Frenk's remarks is available.

-HSPH Dean-designate Julio Frenk

Julio Frenk, an eminent authority on global health who pushed for major health reforms as Mexico's health minister from 2000 to 2006, was introduced to students, faculty, and staff at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) by Harvard President Drew Faust on September 5. In January of 2009, Frenk will succeed Dean Barry R. Bloom, the Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health, who, after a decade of distinguished service, will continue at Harvard as a member of HSPH's faculty and as University Distinguished Service Professor.

Frenk, a former visiting professor at HSPH, was the founding director-general of Mexico's National Institute of Public Health, a world leader in health education and research in the developing world, and an executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO). Currently he is a senior fellow in the global health program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as president of the Carso Health Institute in Mexico City and chair of the board of the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

GROUNDING POLICY IN SCIENCE
Julio Frenk is "admired worldwide for his leadership, vision, and remarkable record of accomplishment in public health," said Faust when she announced Frenk's appointment on July 29. "He is a highly influential figure at the crossroads of scholarship and practice, known for his profound concern with how scientific evidence can foster improvements in health systems and policy in societies around the world."

Frenk has a "highly multidisciplinary outlook, a strong commitment to reducing disparities in health, and a deep understanding of the power of education and research to change lives for the better," Faust said. "His leadership experience in government, in the academy, at WHO, and beyond, along with his longstanding connections to HSPH, hold great promise to serve Harvard well."

Thanking Faust for the honor, Frenk said in July that "for the best part of my professional life, I have maintained intense contact with the School and have benefited enormously from interaction with its faculty. I see this appointment as a unique opportunity to continue to advance the notion that has inspired my entire career-namely, that science and scholarship represent the enlightened way to guide purposeful social transformation for the benefit of every human being."

'FOUR REVOLUTIONS'
During his September visit to HSPH, Frenk talked about the importance of building bridges across Harvard, research disciplines, and domestic and global health. Public health, he said, is "at the threshold of a new era" fueled by "four simultaneous revolutions"-in the life sciences; in information and communication technology; in systems thinking; and "in what Michel Ignatieff, formerly at Harvard Kennedy School, has called the rights revolution, which provides the ethical foundation for so much of what we do in public health."

Harvard, he continued, offers "the breadth of disciplines, the depth of knowledge, and the wealth of faculty and students to lead this process of renewal, which holds so much promise for the world."

LEADERSHIP ROLES
Frenk has held prominent leadership roles in public health spanning nearly 25 years. After earning a medical degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a doctorate from the University of Michigan, he served from 1984 to 1987 as the founding director of the Center for Public Health Research in Mexico's Ministry of Health. From 1987 to 1992, he was founding director-general of the National Institute of Public Health, guiding its emergence as one of the developing world's most respected and innovative centers of education and research in public health. In 1993 he was named a member of the U.S. Institute of Medicine.

From 1995 to 1998, Frenk was executive vice president of the Mexican Health Foundation as well as director of its Center for Health and the Economy. There he led an analysis of the Mexican health system, laying the foundation for his subsequent reform efforts. As a senior official at WHO from 1998 to 2000, Frenk focused on developing a strong base of scientific evidence to inform health policies and on building the capacity of different countries to enhance the performance of their health systems.

HEALTH CARE FOR MILLIONS
Serving for the next six years as Mexico's minister of health, Frenk pursued an ambitious agenda to reform the country's health system. He is perhaps best known for his work in introducing a program of comprehensive national health insurance, Seguro Popular, which expanded access to health care to tens of millions of previously uninsured Mexicans. In 2006, that initiative was the focus of a six-part series in The Lancet, a leading British medical journal.

Barry Bloom, who came to HSPH at the start of 1999, says Frenk is "recognized as one of the great visionaries of global health." From his academic career to his policy work at WHO to putting his ideas into practice in Mexico, Bloom says, Frenk has shown "the highest level of commitment to creating effective health systems focused on improving prevention and care for everyone, particularly the poor and underserved."

For a video and transcript of Julio Frenk's remarks, visit http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/multimedia/JulioFrenk/. This article is based on a press release from the Harvard University Office of News & Public Affairs and an article originally published in Harvard Public Health NOW.