Christopher Murray

He is also leading a University-wide effort focused on enhancing and expanding education and research on global health throughout Harvard. This new initiative will serve as the nexus for interdisciplinary and inter-school activities aimed at scientific, economic, social and ethical problems associated with health problems throughout the world, including the United States.

Murray will continue pursuing his interest in health systems organization, performance and efficiency, as well as in population health metrics involving the Global Burden of Disease Study, which he initiated. Sponsored by the National Institute of Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, the Global Burden of Disease project is a worldwide collaboration of more than 100 researchers and is based at HSPH, in collaboration with WHO.  The latest results are featured in the Global Burden of Disease and Injury Series, which quantifies the burdens of 486 sequelae of 108 major causes of death and disability, disaggregated by eight geographic regions and 10 age-sex groups. More information about the project is available at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/burdenofdisease/.

"You cannot set health priorities if you have not identified health problems and their magnitude," said Dean Barry Bloom. "Until 1993, no one knew from what problems people in the U.S. and in other countries were dying. As a junior faculty member at HSPH, Chris headed the Global Burden of Disease Unit, developing approaches to measuring mortality and non-fatal health outcomes and providing data that form the basis of assessments of population health, policies to improve health, and the accountability of governments to provide adequate measures to ensure the health of their populations."

Next fall, Murray will offer a new undergraduate course on "The Challenges of Global Health." He can be reached at christopher_murray@harvard.edu.