Dr. Deutsch is interested in systems approaches to face-to-face health promotion and disease prevention as complements to information transfer and message delivery.  He has consistently focused on environments that promote the social, behavioral, and emotional dimensions of child and family health; systemic strategies for helping children and families isolated by stigmatizing conditions; and the roles in child and adolescent public health played by educators, other non-health professionals, and youth themselves.

His curricula and programs have been disseminated by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the U.S. Department of Education, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the UN Population Fund. For more than twenty years his book, Broken Bottles, Broken Dreams: Understanding and Helping Children of Alcoholics, has prepared professionals and nonprofessionals to play early intervention roles.

Dr. Deutsch is co-principal investigator and deputy director of the Harvard Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity (HPRC). Inaugurated in 1998 with support from the CDC and other partners, HPRC studies, promotes and evaluates scientifically sound school- and community-based interventions for children and youth to increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and prevent overweight and obesity. He is also lead investigator of the Maine-Harvard PRC, a statewide partnership with the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Maine Center for Public Health.  

Dr. Deutsch has long been involved in international health promotion. For the World Health Organization (WHO), he developed a comprehensive program in communication, supervision and leadership skills for primary health care and community health workers in East Africa. Since 1999 he has been working with the South Africa Departments of Health and Education to strengthen programs to prevent HIV infection among youth.  He established the HSPH Centre for the Support of Peer Education (CSPE), whose mission is to demonstrate that peer education in South Africa can achieve regular, consistent face-to-face access to communities, families and youth as part of a sustainable life skills, health promotion and HIV and AIDS prevention system.  

Peer Education (PE) seeks to strengthen social norms that combat gender inequity and fatalism.  It aims to prevent new HIV infections, encourage testing and early treatment, and support the vulnerable children of the pandemic against threats to their health and safety.  To succeed at these objectives requires more than simple information transfer.  Effective, rigorous PE must be supported by a coherent, scientific, and sustainable intersectoral system. This system is evolving from a unique national consultative process HSPH started in 2000, involving hundreds of South Africans, national and provincial departments of health, education, and social development, and dozens of organizations and institutions.  

Based at Wits University in Johannesburg, with a satellite office in KwaZulu Natal, CSPE is funded primarily by the CDC-South Africa as part of the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).  Its partners include 4 of the 9 provincial departments of education; the national and two provincial departments of health; the Anglican Church and Catholic Institute for Education; sport and recreation programs; higher education institutions; and worksite PE programs such as the SA Police Services.  CSPE provides its partners with training, ongoing technical assistance, materials development, a common management information system, and help understanding, conducting and disseminating research and evaluation.  

CSPE also receives PEPFAR funding through USAID to apply peer education to the needs of South Africa's 1.2 million orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). OVC require sustained psychosocial support, concrete coping skills, and education to prevent risk behaviors for HIV infection and other threats to health and safety.  However, South Africa faces a critical shortage of professional capacity.  Moreover, many vulnerable children will only accept help in the context of social activities that are fun, safe, and connect them with their peers, schools and churches, and communities.

In 2006-07, CSPE began to work with selected SA partners operating drop-in centers for OVC.  CSPE developed and field-tested Vhutshilo, a curriculum and training process for peer-led, structured, time-limited, interactive prevention education and support groups for 10-13 year old OVC.  Trained and carefully supervised peer educators (16-19 years old) plan and facilitate these groups, and serve as role models of resilience.  In 07-08 CSPE will continue support to the original 10 implementing sites; extend the 10-13 year old program to 30 new sites, including schools and churches; and develop, test, and implement a new curriculum and training process for peer-led groups for 14-16 year old OVC.  In the project's third year CSPE will test whether peer educators from the 10-13 year old groups, under the supervision of older peer educators, can work with 5-10 year old children in recreation and support capacities.

A second PEPFAR/USAID subcontract supports the evaluation of the Vhutshilo intervention for 10-13 year olds between October 2007 and September 2008. It will assess:  1) The feasibility of training and supporting South African community-based programs to deliver a peer-led group intervention for OVC; 2) The impact of the program on OVC knowledge, attitudes and intentions, skills and behaviors; 3) The impact of the program on the peer educators; 4) The strengths and weaknesses of the intervention components; and 5) Burdens and benefits for implementing programs.

Sc.D., 1987, Harvard School of Public Health
M.A.T., 1970, Yale University