“The advantage for the selected Ph.D. students is that the fellowship allows for them to focus on their research without the distraction of administrative duties,” said Marian Botchway, assistant director of training and educational programs at the Eck Institute for Global Health. “These Ph.D. students can immerse themselves in their data collection, analysis, and writing.”

Here are four Ph.D. students—all of whom will defend their dissertations this year—whose studies intersect in global health in different ways and locations, but find commonalities through the Eck Institute’s leadership and network.

Emily Selland

Working with rice farmers in the river basins of Senegal and fishing communities in Kenya, Emily Selland’s research looks at ecological and social interventions to mitigate the transmission of schistosomiasis, a parasitic worm infection that can be life-threatening and generally found outside the US.

“I'm not from a schistosomiasis endemic region, so I am working with and learning from the people there that have the knowledge and expertise, as well as critical lived experiences,” she said. “A lot of scientific research is geared towards publications, papers, and later application. But the Eck Institute is supportive in getting my research and application to affected communities.”

Mentored in her Ph.D. research by Jason Rohr, Ludmilla F., Stephen J., and Robert T. Galla College Professor & Department Chair in the Department of Biological Sciences, she also credits Bernard Nahlen, director of the Eck Institute for Global Health and professor of biological sciences, with helping her understand the intersectionality of global health.

“Professor Nahlen has this rich knowledge of how all the pieces tie together,” she said. “I do a lot of work in the science policy and science communication space. I am thinking about the structure of foreign governments, interacting with them, and determining how we can broadly control diseases and global health. I got a lot of value from learning about his background, hearing his examples, and talking through different scenarios of applied global health.”

Recently, Selland has been finalizing the final chapter of her dissertation, which presents a model of how both social control mechanisms—the human focus, such as mass drug administrations—and environmental control mechanisms can coincide to benefit schistosomiasis-affected societies in sub-Saharan Africa. “The fellowship has given me space and the resources to conceptualize and actualize that,” she said

She concluded, “My time with the Eck Institute has been complementary towards my interests in science policy and the application of research. They have great insights about how I can be involved in this space in the future.”

Jingdong Yang

In his hometown of Wuhan, China, Jingdong Yang lived through the initial COVID-19 outbreak, and he experienced firsthand the complexity of a global pandemic. He said, “It reinforced my belief that global health requires a holistic synergy between lab research, government cooperation, pharmaceutical/biotech innovation, and societal trust.”

Today, his Ph.D. research at Notre Dame is focused on medicinal and biological chemistry, specifically targeting gastrointestinal infections caused by bacterial spores that are resistant to antibiotic treatment. He is mentored by Shahriar Mobashery, Navari Family Professor in Life Sciences, and Mayland Chang, research professor, both in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry.

“By removing the need for additional teaching assistant or resident advisor duties, the fellowship allowed me to maintain high research productivity and focus on my dissertation milestones,” said Yang. “The biggest surprise was realizing how much global health exists outside the lab. Seeing other students’ research helped me understand that solving health crises requires more than just bench science. It involves community engagement, social-government relationships, and health policy.”

“I see a strong parallel between global health and pediatric medicine: Children are a vulnerable population, and each child represents the future well-being of an entire family and society, he said. “My time with the Eck Institute taught me that improving health for the most vulnerable is the most effective way to improve health for the whole population.”

This summer, Yang will begin a two-year postdoctoral clinical chemistry fellowship in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He plans to apply the technologies and analytical skills developed during his studies at Notre Dame to pediatric laboratory medicine, specifically in disease diagnosis and therapeutic drug monitoring.

Prakash B K

“My area of study is ‘caste,’” said Prakash B K, a Ph.D. student in anthropology. “In South Asian scholarship, caste has long been interpreted and understood as a primarily social and cultural phenomenon—a system of hierarchy reproduced through notions of purity and pollution, marriage within one's caste, kinship-based occupational segregation, and everyday practices of touchability and untouchability.”

He further explains, “Caste is also becoming a burgeoning health issue—one that has been overlooked in academia, particularly in the fields of global health and global mental health. Much like racial inequities in Western societies, caste functions as a deeply entrenched structure of power that organizes social life. Its effects are not merely social but profoundly embodied, shaping who is exposed to suffering, whose pain is recognized, and who receives care. Caste is a central axis of health inequality affecting more than 260 million Dalits worldwide.”

Prakash B K is mentored by Aidan Seale-Feldman, assistant professor, and Vania Smith-Oka, professor, both in the Department of Anthropology. He continued, “With their expertise in medical and psychological anthropology, they helped me refine my research questions, pushing me to think more critically about how caste operates within clinical spaces. They also offered detailed feedback on my preliminary findings and emerging analysis, especially around the concepts of microaggression and structural violence.”

This fellowship allowed him to immerse himself in a psychiatric hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, for twelve months. “As an anthropologist, I know that trust, rapport, and deep understanding cannot be rushed. The fellowship gave me the time I needed to observe seasonal changes in patient intake, to witness the same patients across multiple consultations, and to build genuine relationships with Dalit patients who had every reason to be wary of a researcher.”

Through his interactions with the Eck Institute, he learned to translate his anthropological insights into a language that could engage global health practitioners. “I learned to explain why caste matters for health outcomes, not just for social structure. It required me to speak outside my disciplinary comfort zone, and that stretching has made my research stronger.”

“Before the Eck Fellowship, I wanted to be a good anthropologist,” he said. “Now, I want to be an anthropologist who makes caste impossible to ignore in global health. The fellowship gave me that vision, and I am now actively looking for a postdoctoral scholarship position in order to pursue it.”

John Kane

Mentored in his Ph.D. research by Michael Ferdig, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, John Kane uses a combination of genetics, genomics, and molecular biology to understand the cellular responses of malaria parasites to drug exposure and how parasites evolve mechanisms for antimalarial resistance.

“This fellowship made it possible to pursue the multidisciplinary, systems-level approach that defined my Ph.D. research by supporting extended collaborations with researchers across institutions and scientific disciplines,” Kane said. “These experiences not only strengthened the scope of my research but also expanded my technical expertise through specialized experimental and computational approaches.”

Kane noted that he appreciated this fellowship that is rooted in global health, “because it encourages applicants to go beyond a niche question of interest.” He said, “I am always surprised at the diversity of global health-related research that the Eck Institute supports, which transcends infectious disease research and includes chemistry, economics, and various social science disciplines.”

Kane’s experience has confirmed his interest in pursuing a career in the global health field. “The fellowship exposed me to a wide range of impactful research and public health efforts being carried out across the global health community,” he said. “Interacting with researchers working on diverse infectious disease and translational health challenges reinforced the importance of collaborative, interdisciplinary science and strengthened my motivation to contribute to research with tangible real-world impact.”

Global Health Fellowship

Every other year, the Eck Institute awards a limited number of graduate fellowships that provide additional financial support for outstanding students. Fellowship recipients benefit from resources and formal affiliation with the Institute while continuing to advance their disciplinary research that addresses global health challenges.

The Eck Institute’s Ph.D. Fellowship program includes opportunities to make important connections to global health resources, which include support from the vast network of the Eck Institute’s core and affiliated faculty, periodic check-in meetings with Eck Institute directors, lunches with peer Ph.D. fellowship students for sharing research challenges and insights, research presentation opportunities for valuable feedback, as well as attendance at the Eck Institute’s Global Health Speaker Series events.

Botchway said, “Anyone who is working on dissertation research that's linked to health can apply to this funding program. We welcome applications from across the entire university, and I encourage any interested candidates to reach out to me to learn more.”

To learn more about the Eck Institute’s Ph.D. Fellowship program, please visit: https://globalhealth.nd.edu/education/PhD/. The next application cycle will begin in spring 2027.

Contact:
Damienne Jugovic, Research Communications Specialist
Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame
djugovic@nd.edu
research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About the Eck Institute for Global Health
The Eck Institute for Global Health, an integral part of Notre Dame Research, builds on the University’s historical strength in infectious disease research, including vector-borne diseases, while broadening the interdisciplinary expertise into other key global health areas including non-communicable diseases; maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); and global health security. The Eck Institute recognizes health as a fundamental human right and promotes research, training, and service to advance health standards and reduce health disparities, especially for those who are disproportionately impacted by preventable diseases. The Eck Institute is training the next generation of global health researchers and leaders through undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs.

The inaugural Global Health Minor recognition ceremony took place in McKenna Hall, where the graduates officially received their public (global) health honor cords from Eck Institute leadership and listened to speeches by fellow graduates. Family members of the graduates were also in attendance.

“This first class of students is very special to me,” said Marie Donahue, founding director of the Global Health Minor and teaching professor with the Eck Institute for Global Health. “We learned so much from each other over the last two years. They are all so bright and ambitious. I am excited to see where they each go in their careers.”

According to Donahue, the development of the Global Health Minor began slowly. “I was teaching an elective for the master's program on biosocial determinants of health, and I had an undergraduate student ask me if she could take the course. It was then that I began to realize that undergraduates were interested in this field of study.”

She continued, “Then I started doing guest lectures around campus, because so many courses were doing snippets of global health, but there weren't any that focused on it.” In 2019, Donahue established the “Foundations of Global Health” course for undergraduate students. As interest grew over the next few years, she developed the minor program and garnered support from the College of Science, the College of Arts & Letters, and the Keough School of Global Affairs. To date, there are 60 students enrolled in the Global Health Minor curriculum from these, as well as the Mendoza College of Business.

The Global Health Minor curriculum begins with the Foundations of Global Health course, a research methods course of choice, two electives, and finishes with a capstone experience that includes a global health practice experience of choice, which offers students the chance to apply global health principles to a current health problem.

“The Foundations course was so much fun, as was the experiential learning,” said Tim Theisen ‘26, Science Business. “Professor Donahue does an amazing job of encouraging dialogue, even among those who might have different opinions. That really helped me to understand what global health is and what our responsibilities are as students and future leaders in healthcare and elsewhere.”

“We learned that global is local,” said Karlee Waugh ‘26, Biochemistry. “It never felt like I was tackling issues that were geographically distant from me. I was tackling local issues and seeing global health right here in my own South Bend community.”

She continued, “The minor is so amazing, because anyone can take it, and it’s interdisciplinary. There are so many factors that contribute to a person's health. Realizing that social determinants of health even existed was mind-blowing to me. Culture also plays a role.”

Donahue encourages students from all majors to consider adding a Minor in Global Health to their studies at Notre Dame.

“Global health challenges are complicated,” Donahue said. “I'm a pediatric nurse practitioner, and I can treat a child in a limited-resource setting with diarrhea or pneumonia. But I cannot build a water system that's going to prevent illnesses in the first place. I cannot write policies to help fund programs, but people with these strengths and skillsets can.”

Donahue continued, “We have a Global Health Minor graduate from the College of Arts and Letters who majored in Romance Languages. And she worked in a Spanish-speaking clinic in Chicago. For her capstone project, she wrote about how language affects healthcare delivery.”

She concluded, “That's why I always say, ‘You name the major, and I'll tell you how it fits with global health.’”

To learn more about the Global Health Minor, please visit: https://globalhealth.nd.edu/education/undergraduate/global-health-minor/

Contact:
Damienne Jugovic, Research Communications Specialist
Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame
djugovic@nd.edu
research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About the Eck Institute for Global Health
The Eck Institute for Global Health, an integral part of Notre Dame Research, builds on the University’s historical strength in infectious disease research, including vector-borne diseases, while broadening the interdisciplinary expertise into other key global health areas including non-communicable diseases; maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); and global health security. The Eck Institute recognizes health as a fundamental human right and promotes research, training, and service to advance health standards and reduce health disparities, especially for those who are disproportionately impacted by preventable diseases. The Eck Institute is training the next generation of global health researchers and leaders through undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs.

Breast cancer rates in Native American women are low compared to white women, yet Native American women have higher mortality rates. Although the overall breast cancer death rate has declined, it has remained stagnant for Native American women.

“The largest breast cancer database in the world, The Cancer Genome Atlas, contains more than a thousand breast cancer patients — and only one of them is Native American. That means today’s treatments and tests have effectively been built using data from other populations, and then assumed to work equally well for everyone,” said Jun Li, a corresponding author of the study and professor in the Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics at Notre Dame. “Our study is the first to look closely at the biology of breast tumors in Native American women, and it's overdue.”

Researchers compared the genetic makeup of 17 Native American breast cancer tumor tissues to nearly 700 breast cancer tissues from white women from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Breast cancer tissue from Native American women in the study showed differences in which genes carried mutations, how the tumors used their DNA and which genes were turned on or off.

Many of those differences pointed to the immune system. Li said that tumors from Native American women compared to those from white women appeared to “hide” from the body’s immune defenses in fundamentally distinct ways. Researchers also found differences in the genes that protect against DNA damage.

“We found differences at every level we looked at. Several genes were mutated much more often in tumors from Native American women than white women, including some that are critical for the immune system to recognize cancer cells. A few of these immune-related genes were mutated only in Native American patients,” Li said.

Overall, these differences may affect how patients respond to immunotherapies and chemotherapies. However, Li explains the study is meant “to generate hypotheses, not change treatment guidelines.” More research is needed to determine the multiple factors that may impact Native American mortality rates including genetic, environmental, socioeconomic or other determinants.

This is the first study part of a new research focus from Notre Dame’s Harper Cancer Research Institute that aims to collect tumor tissues from populations typically underrepresented in cancer research. The goal is to help fill gaps in the understanding of cancer biology.

“This research focus goes really hand in hand with the University’s mission to be a powerful means for doing good by working with underserved communities with worse cancer outcomes,” said Sharon Stack, the Kleiderer-Pezold Professor of Biochemistry at Notre Dame, the Ann F. Dunne & Elizabeth Riley Director of the Harper Cancer Research Institute and a corresponding author of the study. “While there may be many social determinants of health at play, at Harper we want to investigate if there are differences on the molecular level that impact cancer incidence and outcomes.”

The program will also continue collecting cancer tissues from partnering Native American communities, focusing on the cancer types that may be most prevalent for them, as well as collecting breast cancer tissues from other underrepresented populations such as Panamanian and Kenyan women.

The tissues will be sent to the Harper’s biosample repository and processed through their tissue banking service, which serves as a resource for researchers and doctors in South Bend and beyond.

“When you study a population that has been left out, you often discover biology that nobody knew was there,” said Li, also affiliated with the Harper Cancer Research Institute. “Those discoveries sharpen our understanding of cancer and ultimately, improve care for everyone.”

The lead author of the study was Fangfang Guo, a graduate student in Jun Li’s lab. Laurie Littlepage, the Campbell Family Associate Professor of Cancer Research at Notre Dame, also co-authored the study.

The study was funded by the Ryan Gee Excellence Fund for Cancer Research with additional support from the National Cancer Institute and Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program Breakthrough Award.

Contact: Brandi Wampler, associate director of media relations, 574-631-2632, brandiwampler@nd.edu

Originally published by Brandi Wampler at news.nd.edu on May 27, 2026.

In the United States, ample attention was given to the novelty of how dads, in particular, were getting much more time to participate in the daily, often mundane and yet intimate tasks of child-rearing. Many people hoped that the change would persist, allowing dads more time and flexibility in the long term — ultimately reshaping how we view fatherhood in general.

However, according to new research from anthropologist and fatherhood expert Lee Gettler of the University of Notre Dame, those fathering benefits have not outlasted the pandemic itself.

“COVID didn’t really lead to a large-scale uptick in this new vision for fathering on the part of dads across the board,” said Gettler, the Rev. John A. O’Brien College Professor of Anthropology and chair of the Department of Anthropology, as well as an affiliated faculty at the Eck Institute for Global Health and the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families.

“I think what’s been missing from many of those initial reports was a wider perspective on what the realities are for families and fathers in the United States and around the world following the pandemic,” he said, “especially as we think about common jobs for men, precarity in the workplace and economic inequality.”

To address those gaps in understanding, Gettler and his team, which included co-author and postdoctoral research associate Sarah Hoegler Dennis, relied on 15 years of longitudinal data to compare fathers’ pre-COVID to post-COVID behaviors. The researchers looked at this data from a non-Euro-American perspective in a major metropolitan area in the Philippines.

What they found was that fathering behaviors, for the most part, did not change much before COVID began versus shortly after the pandemic ended.

“There was this idea out there that a meaningful percentage of dads were spending more time with their kids during the lockdown periods, even if they were still working, and that the dynamics of COVID would lead to this long-term effect on what and how much dads were doing within their families,” Gettler said. “And we just didn’t see that prevailing change.”

The research team drew on a large sample of men who were around 25 years old at the start of the study and followed them for the next 15 years as part of a larger set of research in Cebu, Philippines. Gettler and his team have been studying fathering and the “biology of fatherhood” as part of this project for close to 20 years, and have found that fathers in Cebu have become much more involved in the past few decades, mirroring father involvement in the United States.

During the pandemic, the Philippines also had one of the longest lockdown periods in the world, according to Gettler, with some of the most strict, government-mandated quarantine guidelines in place, making this an appropriate site to test for the effects of the stay-at-home orders on fathering.

“There are questions remaining about how we can continue to encourage dads in dual-parent families to pull their weight, be a supportive partner or to balance the responsibilities of what it takes to run a household and take care of young children. COVID exposed or habituated more dads to what that can look like, but now we need to enable them to continue that behavior.”

The researchers used waves of socio-demographic and fathers’ caregiving data collected prior to the pandemic (2009 and 2014) and after the pandemic (2022-23). The main analyses focused on caregiving changes over time for fathers who had young children at home both pre- and post-pandemic, looking at how involved they were with routine, hands-on care for babies and young children, recreational play and activities, and educational caregiving tasks.

“What we found is that COVID — and the time dads spent at home with their children during that period — did not change fathering in any lasting way,” Gettler said. “As soon as life gets back to normal, we see that dads are continuing to do the same thing they were doing before COVID.”

With one exception, Gettler noted.

For the group of fathers who found themselves going from employed to either unemployed or underemployed because of the pandemic, their involvement with their children’s educational care shot up noticeably, and the change persisted.

“We see this link with employment status and fathers’ ability to spend more time helping kids with school work and homework,” Gettler said. “But that’s the only hint that the conditions surrounding COVID may have contributed to some sort of change in what dads are doing at home.”

At the end of the day, dad’s employment status is the primary predictor for how much care he is providing, Gettler said. He believes that policy changes within the workplace — such as paid paternity leave and widespread flexibility on working from home or setting working hours — might lead to a more lasting change in fatherhood behavior. These structural changes could support permanent shifts in expectations and norms for men as caregivers, and open up more opportunities for dads to get — and stay — involved.

Gettler argued that society needs to recognize how it can better support dads and give them the chance to be more available at home, without the caveat of having to become unemployed or underemployed in order to enjoy such chances to be with their families.

“There are questions remaining about how we can continue to encourage dads in dual-parent families to pull their weight, be a supportive partner or to balance the responsibilities of what it takes to run a household and take care of young children,” Gettler said. “COVID exposed or habituated more dads to what that can look like, but now we need to enable them to continue that behavior.”

Gettler, who is also director of the Hormones, Health, and Human Behavior Lab, works with collaborators at multiple global sites and is an expert on fatherhood and healthy families, including the psychobiology of motherhood and fatherhood and parents’ physical and mental health, as well as child growth, development and physiology. Presently, Gettler works on research projects related to these interests in the United States, the Philippines and the Republic of the Congo.

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

Originally published by Tracy DeStazio at news.nd.edu on April 30, 2026.

Jeffrey F. Rhoads, John and Catherine Martin Family Vice President for Research at the University of Notre Dame, and professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, provided opening remarks for the event. “The [COVID-19] pandemic brought many lessons. It showed us that health is not local, a threat anywhere can become a crisis everywhere, and that preparedness is not just about science. It’s about systems, trust, and leadership. And perhaps most importantly, it reminded us that our vulnerabilities are shared—and so is our responsibility,” he said.

Rhoads also challenged the audience to explore tough topics and ask tough questions. "I encourage you all to continue to forge partnerships, push boundaries, and explore what we can do together, because I'm confident that the next global health security crisis will test what we build today. So, let's make sure we build it together through collaboration.”

Panel Discussion
Kicking off the afternoon was the panel discussion moderated by Bernard Nahlen, director of the Eck Institute for Global Health and professor of biological sciences. “Global health security is about our ability to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats,” said Nahlen. “It's also about whether we are prepared across disciplines, institutions, and borders to act together where it matters most. Across Notre Dame, that work is already underway.”

The panel featured perspectives from three faculty researchers with diverse experiences in global health security issues:

• Kyle Bibby - Associate Department Chair and professor of civil and environmental engineering and earth sciences
• Marya Lieberman - Nancy Dee Professor of Cancer Research, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Jarek Nabrzyski - Associate Vice President for Research for Special Initiatives; Senior Advisor and Director Emeritus, Center for Research Computing
  

Titled “From Research Excellence to Global Impact: Notre Dame Advancing Health & Well-Being Through Global Health Security,” the panelists discussed how their specific research addresses global health security concerns, the inherent challenges in working with resource-limited locations, and the importance of working together across disciplines.

Nabrzyski started the panel discussion by emphasizing this point: “Global health security is by definition multidisciplinary. We cannot model, detect, or contain these threats through any single discipline. Zoonotic pathogens sit at the intersection of ecology, genomics, epidemiology, veterinary science, computational science, and decision science — you often need four, five, or six disciplines working in concert to solve a single problem.”

An example was his team’s work with REDI-Net led by Notre Dame researchers. This DoD-funded surveillance program led by Nicole Achee and John Grieco, both research professors in biological sciences, is designed to detect emerging zoonotic diseases before they become outbreaks. “The biology anchors it, but the project only becomes actionable when layered with field collection, genomic sequencing, AI-driven analysis pipelines, secure data infrastructure, and risk visualization for decision-makers,” he said. “None of that happens without disciplines learning each other's vocabulary and working as one team. We encourage our research software engineers to take classes in the domains they support. On REDI-Net, that meant biology. When everyone shares the vocabulary, the team stops working in parallel and starts working together.”

“We have really focused on getting actionable information to people at the right time and the right place,” said Lieberman. “I've learned that I have to get out of my academic bubble. …And often, I find that the problem that I think is the problem, isn't really the problem.”

She continued, “I had not thought that cancer drugs would be subject to being faked, because their quality is so important for care outcomes. Through my work in sub-Saharan Africa, I realized, if people are faking antibiotics, they're going to also be faking these other products. It's not just an analytical chemistry problem. It's a supply chain security problem. It's an information-sharing problem.”

In speaking about his current research, Bibby began, "If you get sick with an infectious disease, you shed markers of that disease in feces, urine, saliva that winds up in wastewater. If we think about where we actually want to look for those markers, it's probably on the front lines where some of these diseases are most likely to emerge, and that's quite a challenging environment. So I think developing tools to enable pathogen surveillance in a more resource-limited setting is something that we're continuing to develop.”

The panelists agreed that sensor technology, predictive tools, artificial intelligence, and the number of global partnerships developed by the Notre Dame community impact global health security and the ability to meet needs where they are.

Keynote Speaker
Next, the program welcomed featured keynote speaker, Ambassador Mark A. Green (retired), former administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and former US Ambassador to Tanzania. Speaking to his theme, “Why Our Global Health Leadership Matters: Stories from the Field,” he shared some of his experiences in Tanzania.

He noted that 2025 was the most significant year for international development in a generation. “A lot of people have dedicated their lives and careers to global health, international development, and humanitarian relief and have been shaken by what has gone on,” he said. “So in 2026 and 2027, that's when we have to answer the question, ‘Is trade, not aid, an excuse to do less with less?’ Or is it a down payment on a new system, a new framework that's innovative?”

He went on to describe that much has changed since the affected programs were created. First, technology has facilitated the daily emergence of new medicines and treatments, as well as the use of mobile phones, civilian drones, 3D printers, and more in remote parts of the world: “AI is diagnosing diseases remotely in places that doctors can't visit often enough.”

“Another big change is how much the world's human landscape has changed,” he said. He noted that 70 percent of Africans are under the age of 30, and in the world today, 120 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes. “How do these families access care? How do we detect and prevent communicable diseases? How do we turn back outbreaks? How can we reach these unfortunate people who have been forced to move? ”

And finally, he explained that there are 32 countries in Africa that pay more in debt service than they do in health. “That's a challenge,” Green said. “Debt is crushing them and limiting their [financial] ability.”

“So, as we gather here on this beautiful campus … we have work to do,” he said. “What we have to do in this new framework is go much further. We have to help them, so they don't have to ask for food, grain, or meds again. That's how that capacity gets built. It's a challenge to all of us, but it's also an opportunity for us to shape what goes forward.”

Recordings of both presentations are currently available on the Eck Institute for Global Health’s Global Health Day 2026 event webpage.

Awards and Recognition Ceremony
The afternoon’s symposium concluded with an awards ceremony that recognized various achievements in global health.

Graduating senior Meera Bhakta ('26, Preprofessional Studies) was recognized with the Global Health Exemplar Award for her depth and breadth of research and work in global health while a student at Notre Dame. Her significant research achievements included:

• Research that addressed one of the most complex challenges in maternal health in India: Why high-risk women elect home delivery despite elevated clinical risk.
• An Ethics Research Fellowship award by the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good for her pivotal role in evaluating a psychosocial breast cancer support group in Harar, Ethiopia.
• Publication of her research in a peer-reviewed journal, Supportive Care in Cancer, for her 2024 collaboration with the Hiwot Fana Cancer Treatment Center in Ethiopia.
  

The Best Undergraduate Student Research Poster, out of 12 presented, was awarded to Ethan Augustine (‘26, Preprofessional Studies) for his research titled, “Utilizing Human Behavior to Identify Gaps in Protection with Insecticide-Treated Nets (ITNs) in Communities near Lake Tanganyika, Democratic Republic of the Congo (2022–2024).”

A total of 31 research posters by graduate students and postdoctoral scholars were presented, and the Best Graduate Student Research Poster was awarded to two winners:

• Henry Kamugisha (Ph.D. Student, Biological Sciences) for his research titled, “High-density subclinical P. malariae and P. ovale infections occur almost exclusively among high-density P. falciparum carriers in western Kenya.”
• Nahom Mulatu (‘26, MS Global Health) for his research titled, “Performance of a Rapid Antigen Detection Test and Clinical Decision Rules for Diagnosing Group A Streptococcal Pharyngitis in Ethiopia.”

The Best Photo in the Global Health Day Photo Contest was awarded to Erin Kong (‘28, Neuroscience and Behavior; Anthropology) for her image titled, “Silence After.” The description that accompanied her photo reads: “The dentist’s room sits serenely after a loud and painful extraction. Just before, two children endured the removal of decaying teeth. Without restorative resources, extraction remained the only option. The teeth rest wrapped in simple paper napkins taken from the dining room. The stillness contrasts with the urgency that preceded it.” A total of 27 photos depicting various topics in global health were submitted by undergraduate and graduate students.

To learn more about Global Health Day, hosted each year by the Eck Institute for Global Health at the University of Notre Dame, please visit the Symposium’s website: https://globalhealth.nd.edu/education/student-opportunities/global-health-day-symposium/

Contact:
Damienne Jugovic, Research Communications Specialist
Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame
djugovic@nd.edu
research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About the Eck Institute for Global Health
The Eck Institute for Global Health, an integral part of Notre Dame Research, builds on the University’s historical strength in infectious disease research, including vector-borne diseases, while broadening the interdisciplinary expertise into other key global health areas including non-communicable diseases; maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); and global health security. The Eck Institute recognizes health as a fundamental human right and promotes research, training, and service to advance health standards and reduce health disparities, especially for those who are disproportionately impacted by preventable diseases. The Eck Institute is training the next generation of global health researchers and leaders through undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs.

Photo Gallery

The winning Notre Dame global health case competition team was made up of undergraduate students and included:

• Ivy Clark, ‘26, Neuroscience & Behavior
• Emma LeSieur, ‘28, English and Pre-Health
• Anesu Matara, ‘26, Physics in Medicine
• Owen McDonald, ‘28, Neuroscience & Behavior

In addition, Olivia Cai, '28, Finance and Philosophy, assisted the team in the competition's first round.

“At the Emory competition, there was a wide range of participants involved,” said Matara. “Seeing teams from schools and medical schools across the United States, in addition to schools in Canada, Australia, Uganda, and Malaysia, was truly inspiring. It was amazing to see how many people around the world share a passion and interest in global health.”

The Emory University event format consists of two rounds. The competing teams receive the case about one week in advance. In round one, all teams present their solutions to the case. The top five teams are then selected to move on to round two, where they are given a new variable in the case to apply to their prepared strategy. Then the final five teams present how they would address this new variable, and judges deliberate to determine the top solution. This year, the entire event was held virtually.

The case addressed by all teams competing at Emory was titled "Beyond Calories: Rethinking Food Aid in Crisis," and it was set in the fictional country of “Kifaru.” Each team was tasked with developing a humanitarian nutrition intervention spanning a five-year period, focusing on reducing reliance on ultra-processed foods and addressing the significant burden of malnutrition. The Notre Dame team was judged to have successfully addressed all issues.

“The most challenging aspect of this year’s case was that it wasn’t based on a specific country,” said McDonald. “This forced us to have a more general and less specific proposal, but we worked to address this by drawing comparisons to real-world countries.”

“While this was initially challenging, we ultimately found a silver lining in that it allowed us to spend more time focusing on the core issues of the case itself rather than getting caught up in contextual details,” added Matara.

“Another difficult aspect was limiting ourselves to a plan that was feasible and realistic,” said LeSieur. “In the realm of global health, there is a lot of room for innovation. But an innovation has to be balanced with cultural understanding, budget constraints, and other circumstances unique to the location where the intervention is based.”

She added, “And with twelve minutes to present, it was difficult to address everything we wanted to include.”

“The stellar performance of these undergraduate students, their hard work over the past several weeks, and their unwavering commitment to global health have been inspiring,” said Marian Botchway, assistant director of the Eck Institute for Global Health and faculty mentor for the team. “I am so proud of these thoughtful and passionate students.”

The road to victory began in February with the Notre Dame Global Health Case Competition, where 12 multidisciplinary student teams competed to become Notre Dame’s representative for the Emory competition. At this February contest, Victoria Gibek (‘28, Science Preprofessional Studies and Global Affairs) was also a member of the winning team. However, due to a schedule conflict, she was unable to participate in Emory’s competition.

The annual Notre Dame event and participation in the Emory event are organized by the Eck Institute for Global Health under Botchway’s leadership. While some teams for the Notre Dame competition form themselves, and she assembles others from individual registrants, all teams must include four to six students from at least three different colleges or schools to integrate multidisciplinary teamwork and perspectives in addressing global health challenges.

LeSieur noted, “I recommend joining a random team for the first year. The best solutions come from collaboration between people from different educational and personal backgrounds.”

“As a finance major, I felt that I was able to provide recommendations and solutions from a different angle and perspective, aiding in the success of the team,” said Cai.

“Last year, Ivy [Clark] and I were part of the team that advanced to the Emory competition,” added McDonald. “After participating in that competition, we saw what it took to be successful, and the two of us had a strong feeling that if we were able to come back next year, we could be very competitive.” McDonald and Clark joined forces with LeSieur and Matara, also finalists at Notre Dame’s competition in 2025.

“This is my fourth year competing in the Notre Dame Global Health Case Competition and my second year competing in the Emory event,” said Clark. “My favorite part of this is the ability to apply concepts we have learned about in coursework to real-life scenarios in new and innovative ways.”

She continued, “Three of our five team members are pursuing a Minor in Global Health, and most of us came with a lot of background knowledge from various classes and extracurriculars. Being able to combine that knowledge to come up with a novel approach to a global health issue is so rewarding.“

To learn more about education opportunities in global health, please visit the Eck Institute for Global Health website: https://globalhealth.nd.edu/education/

Contact:
Damienne Jugovic, Research Communications Specialist
Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame
djugovic@nd.edu
research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About the Eck Institute for Global Health
The Eck Institute for Global Health, an integral part of Notre Dame Research, builds on the University’s historical strength in infectious disease research, including vector-borne diseases, while broadening the interdisciplinary expertise into other key global health areas including non-communicable diseases; maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); and global health security. The Eck Institute recognizes health as a fundamental human right and promotes research, training, and service to advance health standards and reduce health disparities, especially for those who are disproportionately impacted by preventable diseases. The Eck Institute is training the next generation of global health researchers and leaders through undergraduate, masters, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs.

This story is part of Notre Dame Global's series titled "Women Who Inspire."

Nydia Morales-Soto wears many hats. Assistant Director of Research & Partnerships at the Eck Institute for Global Health. Chair of the Somos ND Committee. President of Adelante ND. But if her professional work were to be summed up in two words, it would be these:

Community builder.

When Nydia came to the University in 2011 as a postdoctoral research associate, she knew then that she wanted her work to go beyond what she studied in the lab and published in papers. She wanted it to have a real impact on people and communities.

That’s what drew her to the Eck Institute for Global Health. At the Eck Institute, she saw her aspirations for research being fulfilled, and she wanted to be a part of that. She started working at the Eck Institute in 2019, and she’s been leading the research partnership efforts since.

No single day is the same for Nydia. Some days, she’s working on her own research in antimicrobial resistance. Others, she’s reviewing research projects and finding ways to support investigators and students—“connecting with them, learning what their work is all about, the things they do well, and the things that they would like to explore but haven't yet had the opportunity to pursue.”

The projects Nydia helps lead and facilitate at the Eck Institute are interdisciplinary in nature, crossing over and integrating different disciplines and departments. “We are working to address some of the world's most pressing health challenges, or at least help improve the health and well-being of individuals facing those challenges. And the only way to do that is through an interdisciplinary approach,” she says. “You need to have different perspectives working together to make sure that the solutions we develop are truly useful to the people they are meant to serve.”

Helping people find common ground is a special skill of Nydia’s. She regularly works with individuals who come to projects with different priorities. But she’s learned how to draw people together under one goal—all in the name of making a difference in people’s lives. Her ability to form effective relationships comes from one of her core values: respect. “I will treat you the same whether you are the president of the university or the custodian who's coming to take care of our spaces.” This comes from her mother, she says, who always treated people with respect, who found the good in difficult situations, and who taught Nydia the importance of investing in her community.

Seeing the impact of the research and partnerships she supports is what Nydia finds most exciting about her work. Nydia's strategic leadership role for the Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Initiative is one she’s particularly proud of. “We have tenure-track researchers, non-tenure-track researchers, and staff, all working together in pursuit of better health outcomes for mothers and families.” The initiative serves as a model, she says, of how to bring people together across campus, and in partnership with community and organizational leaders. “It gives me hope of what future years could look like.”

In addition to being interdisciplinary in nature, Nydia’s work is also global in nature. The Eck Institute supports global health research across many regions of the world, while currently focusing on Bangladesh, Kenya, Mexico, and the state of Indiana in the U.S. for deeper, long-term partnership development. The Notre Dame Mexico team, who have worked with Nydia to create programs and placements for students and support global health research development, speaks to her impact:

“Dr. Morales-Soto has been an exceptional partner to the Notre Dame Mexico office and has played a key role in strengthening our collaborative efforts on campus and internationally. She’s been deeply involved in developing student-focused research opportunities and supporting Notre Dame students in experiential global health work, which aligns closely with our mission to engage students in meaningful international experiences.”

Nydia also uses her relationship-building skills in other endeavors at Notre Dame, like establishing Somos ND, a campus initiative that recognizes and honors the legacy of Latinos and Hispanics at the University. For Nydia, Somos ND presented an opportunity not just to unite Latinos and Hispanics across campus, but to bring together everyone in the Notre Dame community to uncover the history and celebrate the achievements of Latinos and Hispanics at the University. Its success serves as a testament to Nydia’s commitment to community and as an example of why she excels at what she does. She is driven by a belief in the power of togetherness.

“We are not transaction makers, we are partnership builders,” she says. “I think that my commitment to this work remains because I still find value in what I'm doing. It just resonates with the person I am.”

And who is Nydia Morales-Soto? She’s a first-generation college student. She’s a microbiology, molecular biology, and global health researcher with a focus on real-world impact. She’s a common ground cultivator between individuals and institutions. She’s a community builder making a difference in global health, one project at a time. But most importantly, she’s a daughter who learned from her mother how to find the sun on a cloudy day, who is teaching her son and daughter to do the same.

Originally published by Jessie Carson at global.nd.edu on March 09, 2026.

The Eck Institute began this initiative to strengthen global health research collaborative ties, offer valuable networking and training opportunities for Notre Dame global health students, and host graduate research students from Mexico.

The visiting graduate students from Mexico connected their current research with insights and best practices learned on the Notre Dame campus through collaboration with designated faculty mentors, networking with researchers, attending selected classes and technical training, and gaining experience with new research methodologies.

“The students’ main goal was further developing their research expertise,” said Nydia Morales-Soto, assistant director of research and partnerships at the Eck Institute for Global Health and lead developer of this new program. “Engaging in conversations across different research contexts and gaining exposure to new methodologies allows them to experience research in new and meaningful ways.”

The students are all from the Mexican state of Oaxaca. They were selected based on interviews and review of applicants’ research to ensure alignment with both their current research projects in Mexico and affiliated faculty members of the Eck Institute for Global Health who would mentor the students during their visit.

In this inaugural effort, the three students spent six weeks on the Notre Dame campus from late October through early December. In working with their respective faculty mentors, the visiting student researchers conducted experiments that supported their research in Mexico.

Elizabeth Cruz Altamirano hails from Oaxaca City, the capital of Oaxaca. With the recent approval and publication of her research paper, she has completed her Ph.D. in biomedicine at Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca. While at Notre Dame, she was mentored by María del Pilar Pérez Romero, associate professor of biological sciences, who focused her efforts with Altamirano in virology and immune/antibody responses.

“My research line is in dengue and how a previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 may worsen the clinical outcome of dengue disease,” said Altamirano. “While I am here, I am learning new techniques, so now I am thinking how to use these techniques in the future. I read many research papers, and I imagine the techniques. But it's quite different to come and do the techniques.”

Ana Rebeca Coello Solano lives in Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, and is working on her master’s in biotechnology at the University of Papaloapan, where her research is focused on breast cancer receptors. She was also mentored by Pérez Romero, who helped Solano focus on cell receptors for vaccine development.

“With Professor Pilar, I am working with viruses, which I have never worked with before,” Solano said. “The techniques are the same, because they are based on molecular biology, which I understand. This helped me to get out of my comfort zone. I had always thought I would only work with cancer. But now I see I can work in similar areas.”

Andrea Michelle Zacarías Rodríguez is from Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca. She is finishing her master’s degree in natural products extracted from microorganisms at the National Polytechnic Institute, Oaxaca Unit. During her time at Notre Dame, she was mentored by Shahriar Mobasherry, Navari Professor in chemistry and biochemistry, who concentrated his time with Rodriguez on drug discovery and antimicrobials.

“In Mexico, I usually do experiments to evaluate if a substance is able to kill pathogenic bacteria,” explains Rodriguez. “But here, I learned that researchers go further. For example, a compound that kills pathogenic bacteria can also deactivate or activate some enzymatic routes. I understand now that it is better to go for a specific gene or for a specific enzyme.”

While on campus, the visiting graduate students also found time for other new experiences, such as attending a Notre Dame football game, a women’s basketball game, experiencing their first snowfall (and making a snowman), and enjoying their first American Thanksgiving holiday. Going forward, each hopes to return to Notre Dame to pursue doctoral and post-doctoral training.

The Eck Institute for Global Health established this initiative in partnership with Notre Dame Global and its team in Mexico, the State Government of Oaxaca in Mexico, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, and COMEXUS (English translation: Mexico-United States Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange), which administers the Fulbright Program on behalf of the U.S. Department of State in Mexico.

“This new program is helping us to further the University’s strategic framework by assisting to develop scientists and engineers for a world deeply in need,” said Bernard Nahlen, director of the Eck Institute. “We also hope to leverage the success of this endeavor to host more students from Mexico and hopefully those from other countries in the future, as we work to expand our impact on global health issues.”

To learn more about global health research initiatives at the Eck Institute for Global Health, including work in Mexico, please visit globalhealth.nd.edu or contact Nydia Morales-Soto to learn more or explore ways to support these efforts.

Contact:
Damienne Jugovic, Research Communications Specialist
Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame
djugovic@nd.edu
research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About the Eck Institute for Global Health
The Eck Institute for Global Health (EIGH), an integral part of Notre Dame Research, builds on the University’s historical strength in infectious disease research, including vector-borne diseases, while broadening the interdisciplinary expertise into other key global health areas including non-communicable diseases; maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); and global health security. EIGH recognizes health as a fundamental human right and promotes research, training, and service to advance health standards and reduce health disparities, especially for those who are disproportionately impacted by preventable diseases. The EIGH is training the next generation of global health researchers and leaders through undergraduate, Master of Science in Global Health, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs.

The study, published in Science, shows that chronic exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos at concentrations too low to cause immediate toxicity causes fish to age faster at the cellular level.

The research began with field studies in China where collaborators examined thousands of fish collected over several years from lakes with differing levels of pesticide contamination. Rohr and colleagues observed that fish living in contaminated lakes lacked older individuals, while populations in relatively uncontaminated lakes included many older fish. This pattern suggested that fish were not failing to add to their populations, but rather were dying earlier in life.

“When we examined telomere length and deposition of lipofuscin in the livers of the fish, well-established biological markers of aging, we found that fish of the same chronological age were aging faster in the contaminated than clean lakes,” said Rohr, the Ludmilla F., Stephen J. and Robert T. Galla Professor and Chair in the Department of Biology.

Chemical analyses revealed that chlorpyrifos was the only compound found in the fish tissues that was consistently associated with signs of aging. These include shortened telomeres, which act like the plastic caps shoelaces and decrease fraying in chromosomes, and lipofuscin deposition, a build-up of “junk” like old proteins and metals within long-lived cells. However, to determine whether chlorpyrifos was the direct cause, researchers needed to conduct controlled laboratory experiments with concentrations matching those measured in the wild, Rohr said.

In this laboratory experiment, chronic low-dose exposure to chlorpyrifos caused progressive telomere shortening, increased cellular aging and reduced survival, particularly in fish from the contaminated lakes that were already physiologically older.

“Although the laboratory results closely matched the field observations, it was possible that a missed high-dose exposure event in the field, rather than chronic low-dose exposures, caused the reduced lifespan,” said Rohr, who is affiliated with Notre Dame’s Berthiaume Institute for Precision Health, Environmental Change Initiative and Eck Institute for Global Health.

To rule out this driver, Rohr and colleagues conducted another laboratory experiment demonstrating that short-term exposure to much higher doses caused rapid toxicity and death but did not accelerate aging through shortened telomeres and increased lipofuscin. This demonstrated that long-term accumulation of exposure to extremely common low concentrations — not brief high-dose spikes — was responsible for the observed aging, Rohr said.

The loss of older individuals can have serious ecological consequences, as older fish often contribute disproportionately to reproduction, genetic diversity and population stability, Rohr said.

“These findings also raise broader concerns because telomere biology and aging mechanisms are highly conserved across vertebrates, including humans,” Rohr said. Potential future research will explore how widespread the phenomenon may be across species and chemicals.

While the European Union has largely banned chlorpyrifos, it remains in use throughout China, parts of the United States and in many other countries. However, the aging effects observed in this study occurred at concentrations below current U.S. freshwater safety standards, Rohr said.

“Our results challenge the assumption that chemicals are safe if they do not cause immediate harm,” he said. “Low-level exposures can silently accumulate damage over time by accelerating biological aging, highlighting that chemical safety assessments must move beyond short-term toxicity tests to adequately protect environmental and human health.”

The research was funded by the National Science Foundations in both the United States and China, the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and the Frontiers Research Foundation.

Contact: Brandi Wampler, associate director of media relations, 574-631-2632, brandiwampler@nd.edu

Originally published by Deanna Csomo Ferrell at news.nd.edu on January 15, 2026.

In Mozambique, more than one in three children under five suffer from stunting, or impaired physical growth, a sign of chronic undernutrition. New research from the University of Notre Dame shows that improving access to safe drinking water can reduce the odds of stunting by about 20 percent, making it the most effective Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) intervention for child growth.

The study, published in the journal Children, is one of the few studies to use nationally representative data from Mozambique to examine the independent and combined effects of access to water and sanitation on child growth outcomes (stunting and wasting). It also provides evidence-based policy recommendations for prioritizing clean water access, improving sanitation and tracking child growth to help guide interventions.

“Access to clean and safe drinking water is critical for preventing chronic undernutrition in children,” said Santosh Kumar Gautam, associate professor of development and global health economics at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. “In Mozambique, where millions lack safe water, focusing on water interventions can have the greatest impact on stunting.”

Malnutrition remains a critical global health challenge, with the highest rates in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. While the World Health Organization highlights WASH as essential to preventing malnutrition by reducing diarrheal disease, environmental enteric dysfunction (an intestinal condition that causes inflammation and damaged gut lining) and impaired nutrient absorption, large gaps still remain. Nearly 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 3.6 billion lack access to safe sanitation.

Mozambique reflects this dual crisis. Recent data shows 56 percent of the population has access to basic drinking water and 31 percent to basic sanitation. In 2022, 37 percent of children under five suffered from stunting and four percent from wasting, or low weight for height. After steady improvements from 2000 to 2020, progress has since stalled. The economic impact of stunting is also high, with more than 11 percent of the gross domestic product lost due to undernutrition in Mozambique.

“There may be no perfect solution to stunting and wasting, but we can get as close as possible by following the evidence,” said Jailene Castillo, co-author of the study and a graduate of the Keough School's masters of global affairs program. “In Mozambique, despite widespread WASH programs, rates of stunting and wasting remain high. We wanted to understand whether WASH alone is enough to reduce malnutrition, a question no one had rigorously tested before.”

Notre Dame researchers analyzed health data from more than 3,500 children, drawn from the Mozambique Demographic and Health Surveys. The survey was conducted by Mozambique’s National Institute of Statistics in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in 2022–23, with technical support from ICF International. Using rigorous econometric methods, the study assessed associations between improved drinking water sources, sanitation facility types and child stunting and wasting. Two key WASH indicators — source of drinking water and type of toilet facilities — were analyzed separately and together.

The study found that after accounting for household and child factors such as wealth, region and religion, improved water access was initially associated with a 20 percent reduction in the odds of stunting. Improved sanitation showed no independent effect on stunting, and neither water nor sanitation had a consistent association with wasting.

“For a parent or caregiver, this means something simple: The safety of the water a child drinks every day can shape that child’s development for years,” said William Pater, a study co-author and biological sciences student at the University of Notre Dame. “For communities and decision-makers, it means that investing in clean, consistent water access may have a bigger impact on long-term child growth than sanitation alone. And because wasting did not respond clearly to either water or sanitation, it reinforces the need for timely nutrition support, infection treatment and social protection programs.”

Policy recommendations

Based on their findings, the researchers recommend that policymakers:

• Prioritize clean water access by expanding safely managed and basic water services and strengthening water-quality monitoring in regions with high stunting.
• Continue sanitation improvements for broader health and dignity benefits, while recognizing these changes may not produce rapid gains in child growth.
• Track progress using clear indicators on WASH access, water quality, disease burden and child growth metrics.

By identifying whether water or sanitation investments have stronger impacts on stunting or wasting, the researchers noted that policymakers in Mozambique and in similar low- and middle-income settings can better allocate resources to reduce child malnutrition.

Study co-author Gautam is affiliated with the Keough School’s Pulte Institute for Global Development as well as Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health and Building Inclusive Growth (BIG) Lab. Christina Molinaro, a graduate of Notre Dame, was also a co-author on the study.

Originally published by April Toler at keough.nd.edu on Dec. 11.

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

“This collaboration is a critical step in closing the gap between academic research and clinical care in our region,” said Jeffrey F. Rhoads, the John and Catherine Martin Family Vice President for Research at Notre Dame. “We are proud to deepen our existing relationship with Beacon Health System and formalize a structure for research collaboration to ensure that our local community continues to benefit directly.”

A key goal of this agreement is to create significant impact, both within the participating organizations and in the community at large. Through its support of research and scientific discovery, the agreement aims to drive innovation in patient care, as well as disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Additionally, it will enable the recruitment of academics with interests in clinical research and physicians with interests in academic research, creating a pipeline to bring top talent to the region. The agreement will also provide workforce development opportunities for physicians and researchers.

“Beacon’s strength has always been its deep commitment to the communities we serve, and this partnership with Notre Dame amplifies that commitment,” said Mark Brett, chief operating officer at Beacon Health System. “By partnering with Notre Dame’s research expertise, we can translate the latest scientific discoveries into improved treatments and care protocols while gaining deeper insights into the unique health needs of our community. This positions us to deliver cutting-edge care today while building the foundation for even stronger health outcomes tomorrow.”

This agreement also enables both organizations to take action on key strategic priorities. Notre Dame identifies health and well-being as an area of investment and emphasizes the need to build strong community partnerships in its 2033 strategic framework. Beacon identifies clinical excellence and community responsiveness in its strategic initiatives. By aligning more deeply these goals, the collaboration aims to advance institutional priorities and support the improvement of community health and well-being in northern Indiana and southwest Michigan.

The University of Notre Dame and Beacon Health System have a long history of working together. This new research agreement builds on the existing relationship between Notre Dame Athletics and Beacon, which supports health and wellness in the local community. Further, experts from Notre Dame and Beacon have long worked together on cutting-edge research projects, including improving trauma patient care, optimizing neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) design, developing innovative spinal surgery technology and enhancing postpartum health outcomes. Currently, the Harper Cancer Research Institute at Notre Dame and Beacon are in the process of hiring a chief of oncology and associate director for clinical and community research, which will be a joint appointment between the institutions — the first of its kind for the two partners.

To learn more about the collaboration, visit the University of Notre Dame or Beacon Health System online.

Contact: Erin Blasko, associate director of media relations, University of Notre Dame, 574-631-4127, eblasko@nd.edu; Heidi Prescott, senior media relations strategist, Beacon Health System, 574-647-3001, hprescottwieneke@beaconhealthsystem.org

Originally published by Erin Blasko at news.nd.edu on October 16, 2025.

The Focused Postpartum Care (Focused-PPC) project will serve as many as 104 women and their children in Elkhart, Marshall and St. Joseph counties — with critical support from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation in the form of a two-year, $310,595 grant.

The project, previously recognized with grants from the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and the Ford Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity, is featured alongside the Eck Institute’s Pop Up Pregnancy & Family Village program in the latest What Would You Fight For? campaign, which will air at halftime of Saturday’s Notre Dame-Boise State football game.

Based in Indianapolis, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Indiana, committed to addressing the physical, behavioral and social needs of vulnerable populations.

“By providing sustained support and monitoring throughout that critical first year, we can help prevent postpartum depression, identify health concerns early and ultimately save lives.”

“Whole health begins with ensuring mothers and babies have the care and support they need during the most critical stages of life,” said Anthem Indiana Medical Director Kirsten Kahle. “Postpartum care is far too often overlooked, yet it plays a vital role in preventing complications, supporting maternal mental health and giving children the healthiest possible start. We’re committed to investing in innovative, collaborative models like the Focused Postpartum Care project that can serve as blueprints for addressing complex health issues.”

Led by Adams, whose research focuses on postpartum care, maternal health and maternal mortality, the Focused-PPC project falls under one of the Eck Institute’s core areas of work, the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Initiative.

First introduced in Ghana, the Focused-PPC project is a group postpartum care, education and support model for postpartum women extending from delivery to one year post-birth.

Participants receive an initial postpartum visit within two weeks of giving birth; a routine postpartum visit at six weeks; additional monthly visits for 12 months; vital signs measurement at every visit; screenings for mental health and social drivers of health at certain intervals; and standardized education on various topics based on time frame after delivery, following a specially designed education guide.

The current standard for postpartum care in the U.S. is one doctor visit at six weeks after delivery.

“Six weeks is no longer sufficient,” Adams said. “If we want to improve maternal mortality and morbidity, we must prioritize quality postpartum care and education until one year post-birth.”

In Ghana, women who participated in the project had lower stress levels than those who did not. They were less likely to experience postpartum depression and more likely to follow healthy eating habits, recognize post-birth warning signs and adopt family planning methods. Due to monitoring, cases of high blood pressure among the participants decreased over time.

Postpartum care is especially critical in Indiana, which ranks low for maternal and infant mortality. Low-income and disadvantaged women and children are especially at risk.

“Focused postpartum care has the potential to significantly improve maternal and infant health outcomes in our community,” said Kimberly Green Reeves, vice president of community impact and partnerships for Beacon Health System. “By providing sustained support and monitoring throughout that critical first year, we can help prevent postpartum depression, identify health concerns early and ultimately save lives.”

For more information, visit yjadams.nd.edu/projects/focused-postpartum-care-project-focused-ppc/.

Originally published by Erin Blasko at news.nd.edu on October 03, 2025.

The symptoms come on quickly — acute fever, followed by debilitating joint pain that can last for months. Though rarely fatal, the chikungunya virus, a mosquito-borne illness, can be particularly severe for high-risk individuals, including newborns and older adults.

While the virus is common in tropical and subtropical regions, including Asia, Africa and South America, public health officials have been tracking reported infections in Europe and, in September, a confirmed case in Long Island, New York.

Outbreaks of chikungunya have prompted the Centers for Disease Control to issue health notices to travelers bound for Bangladesh; Cuba; Guangdong Province, China; Kenya; Madagascar; Somalia; and Sri Lanka.

In Guangdong Province, an “unprecedented” outbreak recently prompted government officials in China to mandate quarantines for anyone suspected of being infected by the virus, spraying individuals with mosquito repellent and spraying impacted buildings and other areas with insecticide.

In a new study, published in Science Advances, researchers at the University of Notre Dame analyzed more than 80 outbreaks of chikungunya virus to improve prediction of future outbreaks and inform vaccine trial development.

“Chikungunya outbreaks are unpredictable in both size and severity,” said Alex Perkins, the Ann and Daniel Monahan Collegiate Professor of infectious disease epidemiology in the Department of Biological Sciences, and co-author of the study. “You can have one outbreak that infects just a few people, and another in a similar setting that infects tens of thousands. That unpredictability is what makes public health planning — and vaccine development — so difficult.”

For the study, Alexander Meyer, a postdoctoral researcher in Perkins’ lab and lead author of the study, and a team of researchers reconstructed and analyzed 86 chikungunya outbreaks, creating the largest comparative dataset of its kind.

“Instead of looking at outbreaks in isolation, looking at many, all of which varied in size and severity, allowed us to search for patterns among them,” Meyer said.

Chikungunya was first identified in the 1950s. Outbreaks have become increasingly frequent and widespread, but they’re also sporadic and difficult to predict, posing a challenge to public health officials when it comes to planning for and preventing infections.

Changes in outbreaks of chikungunya, transmitted by bites from infected mosquitoes — Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus are the primary vectors — and other mosquito-borne illnesses are often considered in relation to climate change, as warmer, more humid conditions can promote mosquito activity.

But Perkins said this study showed that climate isn’t necessarily the most important factor when trying to predict the severity of an outbreak of disease caused by a virus like chikungunya.

“Climate factors like temperature and rainfall can tell us where outbreaks are possible, but this study shows that they don’t help very much in predicting how severe they will be,” he said. “Local conditions matter — things like housing quality, mosquito density and how communities respond. Some variation is simply due to chance. That randomness is part of the story, too.”

Currently, only two vaccines for chikungunya have received regulatory approval — but they are not widely available in regions where the virus is most common.

That is why having such a large, comprehensive dataset is so helpful when it comes to vaccine development, Perkins said.

To test for efficacy, vaccine makers need accurate predictions of where an outbreak might occur before it happens, to conduct trials and monitor whether candidate vaccines are effective.

The study demonstrates how a more comprehensive analysis of past outbreaks can help public health officials prepare for future outbreaks, thereby protecting vulnerable populations and aiding vaccine development.

Additional co-authors include Kathryn B. Anderson at the State University of New York, Natalie Dean at Emory University, and Sandra Mendoza Guerrero and Steven T. Stoddard at Bavarian Nordic Inc., which provided funding for the study. This work was additionally supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.

Contact: Jessica Sieff, associate director of media relations, 574-631-3933 or jsieff@nd.edu

Originally published by Jessica Sieff at news.nd.edu on October 03, 2025.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced a “conditional recommendation” for spatial emanators, also known as “spatial repellents,” in the fight against malaria. This key determination was informed by spatial repellent studies that included the Advancing Evidence for the Global Implementation of Spatial Repellents (AEGIS) Project in Kenya, led by the University of Notre Dame and funded by Unitaid. The findings from this particular study were recently published in The Lancet.

Spatial repellents hung in interior spaces emit an active ingredient into the air that can affect mosquitoes in different ways, depending on the dose of the chemical. This includes killing mosquitoes, deterring them from entering treated spaces, and/or preventing them from finding humans to bite. Any one or a combination of these behaviors reduces mosquito biting, which is required to transmit pathogens that cause disease.

According to the findings from the AEGIS Project in Kenya, the rate of first-time malaria infections was one-third less for homes with the collective use of insecticide-treated bed nets and spatial repellents, when compared to homes with insecticide-treated bed nets and the placebo spatial repellent product. The AEGIS project was funded by the global health organization Unitaid and led by Notre Dame, with support for the Kenya trial from the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“We're ecstatic about this conditional recommendation by the WHO. This is a milestone for the global vector control community,” said Nicole Achee, Lead Principal Investigator and Scientific Director of the AEGIS Project at the University of Notre Dame. “It was one of the AEGIS program’s major objectives—to contribute research evidence that could improve people’s health, which aligns with Notre Dame’s mission to be ‘a powerful means for doing good’ in the world.”

Added Achee, “This conditional recommendation by the WHO opens the doors for governments to be able to procure and utilize spatial repellents for communities living in disease endemic countries. But there are still questions to be answered.” This includes the feasibility of scaling up the distribution of spatial repellents, considering factors such as affordability, distribution pathways, efficacy in different environments, and cultural acceptance. The AEGIS program has also explored these areas of need.

“Unitaid is proud to have supported the research that confirmed the promise of spatial repellents, the first new class of vector control intervention in decades. Spatial repellents open new pathways for protecting people from malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. Our focus now is to accelerate access to ensure that these lifesaving tools reach affected communities faster,” said Dr. Philippe Duneton, Executive Director at Unitaid.

Beyond malaria, spatial repellents are also being evaluated for their potential to reduce the transmission of dengue virus and other arboviruses, for which Notre Dame has conducted trials as well. These include trials in Peru, which demonstrated protection, as well as one with the AEGIS consortium in Sri Lanka.

Neil Lobo, research professor and medical entomologist in the Department of Biological Sciences, is also pleased with this announcement. “This conditional recommendation is a super good thing. This allows countries and ministries of health to implement spatial repellents that can actually protect their people,” he said. “It is an intervention that is proven to protect people outside the scope of other recommended interventions that are present right now.” Lobo’s lab is leading new research in Bangladesh, in addition to Thailand, Cambodia, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, to assess the impact of spatial repellents on these mosquito vectors, as well as opportunities to scale up such measures.

“With funding from Notre Dame and partnerships with ministries of health, we are evaluating a spatial repellent product against dengue transmission in the urban area of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where there have been significant outbreaks of dengue,” said Lobo. “Unlike malaria, dengue is a virus, so there is no cure. We are focused on prevention.”

According to the WHO, there were an estimated 263 million malaria cases and nearly 600,000 malaria deaths in 83 countries globally in 2023. This same year, there were more than 5 million cases of dengue reported, and more than 5,000 deaths worldwide. Greater than 80 percent of these dengue cases are in the Region of the Americas, which includes all countries in North and South America, as well as all Caribbean island nations.

Speaking about the recent news, Bernard Nahlen, professor of biological sciences and director of the Eck Institute for Global Health at Notre Dame, said, “Notre Dame faculty are at the forefront of global efforts to understand and prevent vector-borne diseases. Both nationally and internationally, Notre Dame’s long-standing excellence in vector biology is recognized as indispensable to this crucial area of research.”

To learn more about infectious disease research initiatives at the Eck Institute for Global Health, please visit globalhealth.nd.edu.

###

Contact:
Damienne Jugovic, Research Communications Specialist
Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame
djugovic@nd.edu
research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About the Eck Institute for Global Health
The Eck Institute for Global Health, an integral part of Notre Dame Research, builds on the University’s historical strength in infectious disease research, including vector-borne diseases, while broadening the interdisciplinary expertise into other key global health areas including non-communicable diseases; maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); and global health security. The Eck Institute recognizes health as a fundamental human right and promotes research, training, and service to advance health standards and reduce health disparities, especially for those who are disproportionately impacted by preventable diseases. The Eck Institute for Global Health is training the next generation of global health researchers and leaders through undergraduate, Master of Science in Global Health, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs.

About Unitaid
Unitaid is a global health organization that saves lives by making new health products available and affordable for people in low- and middle-income countries. Unitaid works with partners to identify innovative treatments, tests and tools, help tackle the market barriers that are holding them back, and get them to the people who need them most – fast. Since Unitaid was created in 2006, the organization has unlocked access to more than 100 groundbreaking health products to help address the world’s biggest health challenges, including HIV, TB and malaria; women’s and children’s health; and pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Every year, more than 300 million people benefit from the products Unitaid has helped roll out. Unitaid is hosted by the World Health Organization.

From the spread of dangerous pathogens like avian influenza (bird flu) to the devastating toll of narcotics like fentanyl, many of today’s public health threats share a common need: better, faster detection.

To meet this need, Notre Dame Research (NDR) has launched the ND Sensor Initiative (NDSI). An interdisciplinary effort to develop and deploy advanced sensor technologies that can save lives and protect communities, the initiative unites researchers from across the University to create precise, rapid, and low-cost tests for emerging threats.

"Whether we are facing emerging diseases, dangerous drugs, or chemical emergencies, these are all challenges that can benefit from superior sensor technology," said Nosang V. Myung, director of the new initiative.

Myung, the Bernard Keating-Crawford Professor of Engineering, explained, "Improvements over the past ten years mean that precise, powerful, and low-cost tests can make a difference for public health by empowering affected people to act quickly. Notre Dame is a leading source for developing these crucial analytical tools."

A collaboration between the Berthiaume Institute for Precision Health (BIPH), the College of Science, the College of Engineering, and NDR, the NDSI is led by a team of distinguished faculty, bringing together existing University strengths to be a force for good in the world.

Myung, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, will lead the NDSI. The leadership team also includes Marya Lieberman, the Nancy Dee Professor of Cancer Research in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, as associate director, and Matthew Webber, acting director of BIPH and the Keating-Crawford Collegiate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, as co-principal investigator.

Two Critical Fronts

The initiative will focus its expertise on two immediate and widespread crises:

Avian Influenza (Bird Flu): Myung, a leading researcher in the field, previously developed a powerful sensor with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation that effectively detects avian influenza. The goal of this technology is to shift from a system where farmers send samples to distant labs—a process that can take days—to one where on-site sensors provide immediate results. This dramatic reduction in response time can protect the health of animals and people while securing the livelihoods of farmers.

The Opioid Epidemic: More than 100,000 overdose deaths occur annually in the U.S., four out of five of which involve opioids. The crisis has strained public health systems and exacerbated social issues like homelessness and mental illness. A major challenge for first responders is the constantly changing landscape of synthetic drugs. Current methods, such as infrared spectroscopy, are often not sensitive enough to detect these trace components, making triage difficult and dangerous.

This effort will build upon a recent investment by the University-wide Bioengineering and Life Sciences (BELS) Initiative to launch Notre Dame Serving Community Analytical Needs (ND-SCAN). Led by Myung and Lieberman, ND-SCAN will establish a new 1,000-square-foot laboratory in McCourtney Hall for the development of transformative sensor technologies that can be used in the field by law enforcement, healthcare providers, and harm reduction groups, in collaboration with community partners.

“To work on a crisis like this, you have to break down the distinction between the lab and the community,” Lieberman explained. “We gain community impact by working closely with community members and local government. We start with social needs and community questions, so the arc of our projects will end in real-world impact, not just academic papers.”

Contact

Erin Fennessy / Writing Program Manager

Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame

efenness@nd.edu / research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About Notre Dame Research

The University of Notre Dame is a private research and teaching university inspired by its Catholic mission. Located in South Bend, Indiana, its researchers are advancing human understanding through research, scholarship, education, and creative endeavor in order to be a repository for knowledge and a powerful means for doing good in the world. For more information, please see NDR's website or NDR's LinkedIn.

Originally published by Brett Beasley at research.nd.edu on September 08, 2025.

Last year, B.A.B.E. store “shoppers” were offered something new to help their families: free lead screening kits offered by the University of Notre Dame’s Lead Innovation Team. These kits allow parents to determine the risks of lead in their homes and to their children.

“During early childhood development, the body is rapidly changing, growing and doing everything it needs to do in those early years. Lead disrupts all of that,” said Heidi Beidinger-Burnett, professor of the practice at the Eck Institute for Global Health and community health leader for the Notre Dame Lead Innovation Team.

Lead poisoning is linked to developmental problems, anemia, and brain and nervous system damage in children. The CDC says that there is no safe blood lead level and even low levels of lead can “reduce a child’s learning capacity, ability to pay attention and academic achievement.” Children under the age of six are considered to be of greater risk for lead poisoning due to their developing brains and nervous systems.

Unfortunately, the South Bend community is uniquely vulnerable to lead poisoning as 80 percent of the city’s homes were built before 1978 and are likely to have lead paint. By focusing on B.A.B.E. store shoppers, the goal is to reach young families that may rent or own one of these houses.

“It’s critically important to work with young parents and new moms, such as those coming to the B.A.B.E. store, so we can find the lead early, ideally before a new baby is born or brought home,” Beidinger-Burnett said.

Initial testing from the program, a partnership with Beacon Community Impact, showed that nearly half of returned lead screening kits tested positive for elevated lead levels. And of those lead-positive kits, Beidinger-Burnett said 95 percent were from a home with at least one child age six or younger.

If a home lead test comes back positive, the Notre Dame Lead Innovation Team gets in touch with parents about available resources including options for lead testing for children under the age of seven.

But even if families confirm lead exposure in the home, removing it can be burdensome and expensive. However, Lead Safe South Bend is helping homeowners and landlords alleviate that potential cost.

“The City of South Bend offers funding to qualified families and landlords to repair homes with lead exposure. This is an incredibly important resource for our community. The City works to fix your house and make it safer for your family,” Beidinger-Burnett said.

Those eligible can apply for Lead-Safe Home Repair funding from the City of South Bend. The grant program allows qualifying homeowners to receive funding to pay contractors for necessary lead safety repairs.

“The Lead Hazard Reduction Program through the City of South Bend is set to expire in December 2025. Funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the City has been able to support homeowners, landlords and renters, focusing on homes built before 1978 with children under the age of six living in the home,” said Emily Bastine, director of neighborhood health and housing for the City of South Bend. “Working hard to meet their goal, the City currently has capacity to remediate another twenty homes. The Lead team looks for opportunities to collaborate with entities such as the Notre Dame Lead Innovation Team and the St. Joseph County Department of Health in order to share with the target population.”

This is valuable, as Beidinger-Burnett shared that about 75 percent of the returned lead screening kits from the B.A.B.E. store were from those who live in rental homes.

“If a child is exposed to lead, even small amounts, over months or years, we get into some real scary territory in terms of health risk that we may not be able to come back from,” Beidinger-Burnett said. “Lead poisoning contributes to ADHD, reduced IQ and lower reading levels. But we have an opportunity here to stop the exposure, and prevent any kind of lead-poisoning progression.”

Beyond the partnership with WIC, home lead screening kits are available upon request or at designated pickup locations. To learn more about receiving a free kit, please visit leadinfo.nd.edu.

In addition to Beidinger-Burnett, Notre Dame’s Lead Innovation Team includes Marya Lieberman, Graham Peaslee and Vikrant Jandev in the College of Science as well as Matthew Sisk and Donovan Leiva in the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society.

Contact: Brandi Wampler, associate director of media relations, 574-631-2632, brandiwampler@nd.edu

Originally published by Brandi Wampler at news.nd.edu on July 08, 2025.

In rural areas of the sub-Saharan African country of The Gambia, government data shows a high prevalence of anemia in young mothers and their children under five years of age, implying a causal association between them. In a recent study, the results of which are published in Nutrients, researchers from the University of Notre Dame further analyzed this association to determine its prevalence, possible causes, and predictability, as well as recommended strategies that could reverse this trend.

What started as a final project for a graduate-level course turned into a personal pursuit for Alhagie Sowe ‘24 MSGH, the study’s lead researcher, who was born and raised in The Gambia and went on to earn his Master of Science in Global Health (MSGH) degree at the University of Notre Dame. Upon completion of the program’s “Global Health Policy” course where Sowe presented initial data analysis on the subject, he and course professor Santosh Kumar Gautam, associate professor of development and global health economics in the Keough School of Global Affairs, along with MSGH director, Elizabeth Wood, associate professor of the practice with the Eck Institute for Global Health, pursued more in-depth data and analysis.

“This was the first research on the intergenerational association of anemia in The Gambia. The empirical data available through the Gambian Demographic Health Survey was never analyzed to the level that we did,” said Sowe. In addition, the Notre Dame researchers reviewed data from the collection of blood samples from women and young children to determine anemic status. They also studied other factors, including household wealth, maternal education, family sizes, birth orders of anemic children, and nutrition.

After rigorous data analysis, the study concluded that children born to anemic mothers were 13.5 percentage points more likely to also be anemic, as they are enveloped in the same socioeconomic environment with challenges in nutrition and diet diversity as their anemic mothers. Further, they found that those children in the poorest households had a “substantially higher risk” of developing anemia. This intergenerational association of anemia and its prevalence in resource-constrained areas of The Gambia highlights the attention needed to reverse the pervasiveness of anemia and its impact on poorer regions of the country.

“Anemia is under-researched, and it is a big issue,” said Gautam, who recently published research on a similar study in India. “Iron supplementation for pregnant women, greater diet diversity, as well as creating policies that facilitate access to effective maternal healthcare will help puncture the cycle of anemia development in the poorer regions of The Gambia.”

Wood added, “We can also work to change social norms around anemia. The first one thousand days of a child’s life are the most critical for good health. Mothers need consistent access to the best nutrition for their young children. The Eck Institute for Global Health is committed to such research in our Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Initiative that addresses the critical healthcare needs of pregnant and postpartum women and their children.”

The researchers also found that children born to younger mothers with less than five years of education were also at greater risk of becoming anemic.

“Teen mothers are not always sure how to care for their new babies. Often, they are still going through puberty, so they experience significant blood loss and are not sure how to take care of themselves. So the birth order of their children also plays a part in the predictability of childhood anemia,” said Gautam.

“I grew up in rural Gambia in similar conditions as the people we studied, so this research hit home for me,” said Sowe. ”I could have been one of those children that we are analyzing today. Being a part of solving health disparities in my country is so important to me.”

Sowe’s work in this area continues. Recently, he shared the research findings with senior officials at the Ministry of Health in The Gambia, which included a representative from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other research institutions.

“I now have direct lines of communication with the Director of Public Health and other colleagues that can foster more collaboration and further studies to understand more about the causes of maternal and child anemia,” said Sowe. “We are hoping to share our findings more broadly and implement new policies that promote better nutrition for mothers and their young children.”

To learn more about Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Initiative at the Eck Institute for Global Health, please visit globalhealth.nd.edu/impact.

[Note: This research was funded by the Eck Institute for Global Health.]

Contact:
Damienne Jugovic, Research Communications Specialist
Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame
djugovic@nd.edu / 574.631.7029
research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About the Eck Institute for Global Health
The Eck Institute for Global Health (EIGH), an integral part of Notre Dame Research, builds on the University’s historical strength in infectious disease research, including vector-borne diseases, while broadening the interdisciplinary expertise into other key global health areas including non-communicable diseases; maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); and global health security. EIGH recognizes health as a fundamental human right and promotes research, training, and service to advance health standards and reduce health disparities, especially for those who are disproportionately impacted by preventable diseases. The EIGH is training the next generation of global health researchers and leaders through undergraduate, Master of Science in Global Health, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs.

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame, together with a research team from two Ethiopian universities, recently had their qualitative study published in Supportive Care in Cancer. In their evaluation, they explored the perspectives of Ethiopian breast cancer patients who, in spite of conflicting cultural emphasis on some traditional healers who discourage the pursuit of modern medicine, bravely turned to modern medicine and participated in new support groups as part of their cancer treatment. The team examined support groups recently established in eastern Ethiopia to enhance breast cancer patients’ well-being and survivorship. The researchers also learned from revealing discussions with cancer care providers, caregivers, as well as the traditional healers/spiritual leaders.

While a lack of financial resources and healthcare infrastructure can often limit access to care in Ethiopia, the research group found that women diagnosed with breast cancer are heavily influenced by their families and communities in making treatment decisions. The stigma of accessing modern medicine is powered by fear of the negative outcomes associated with treatment, such as hair loss, nausea, mastectomies and the resulting feeling that femininity has been lost, and death falsely attributed to the choice to seek modern medicine.

Spiritual leaders, referred to as “traditional healers,” are very influential in their respective communities. And in order to adhere to cultural values, many women, especially in rural areas, often feel compelled to visit traditional healers who lack medical training for their initial treatment, a step that could lead them to dangerously delay or bypass more effective and appropriate care.

Fortunately, the study found that the psychosocial support groups that are now part of modern medical breast cancer treatment in Harar, Ethiopia, are effective for participating women in helping to alleviate their concerns about their treatments and associated symptoms, overcome cultural stigma, openly discuss their experiences, reduce the feelings of isolation, be inspired by those who have survived breast cancer, and develop positive outlooks about their futures. As one survivor put it, “hearing everyone’s stories gave me hope.”

This qualitative study was a collaborative effort with researchers and providers at Ethiopia’s Hiwot Fana Specialized University Hospital and Haramaya University in Harar and University of Notre Dame researchers Meera Bhakta (‘26, College of Science, Pre Professional Studies), as the paper’s second author, and Elizabeth Wood, associate professor of the practice with the Eck Institute for Global Health. Ethiopian university collaborators included Nahom Belete, Tara Wilfong, Mahlet Shewangizaw, Edilawit Abebaw Abera, Yehenaw Tenaw, Michael Shawel, Habtamu Seife, Biruk Habtamu, and Nahom Wondwossen, most of whom developed the psychosocial support groups that were studied.

Bhakta and Wood spearheaded qualitative data collection on behalf of the research group. As there is long-standing distrust in eastern Ethiopia between care providers in modern medicine and traditional healers, the U.S.-based researchers were deemed to be trusted facilitators, and hence they were able to gather insights from all perspectives with no perceived agenda.

“We rarely have this advantage as outsiders,” said Wood. “But in the Harar area of Ethiopia, many traditional healers do not like physicians. They feel modern medicine is trying to drive them out of business. Yet they were very forthcoming in showing us the herbs and things they offer to women with cancer, because we were outsiders.”

“The most valuable part of this research was the opportunity to hear stories from Ethiopian women with breast cancer, as well as the cancer care providers,” said Bhakta. “And in talking with traditional healers, we got a sense of the depth of their communities’ cultural values and the circle of respect within these communities. I see why women are drawn to them for treatment first.”

The research team reported that the new support groups are effective in addressing the cultural stigma surrounding cancer, which was identified as a significant barrier to seeking effective treatment. And there are signs of greater impact. Since the support groups were established two years ago, more family members now support the use of modern medicine for their loved ones diagnosed with breast cancer. In addition, new initiatives are underway to scale up this effort to other regions in Ethiopia and develop support groups for patients with other forms of cancer.

“In doing these interviews, we created spaces where diverse members of a community were able to openly talk about their lives, experiences, and vulnerabilities, and ultimately inspire meaningful change,” added Bhakta, who also spoke about her experience in doing this research in a recent installment of Notre Dame’s Fr. TED Talks. “These people gave us their valuable time in talking with us, and in some cases, traveled great distances to do so. We hope we are giving back to them through this research, increasing the survival rate of breast cancer in Ethiopia, and honoring their stories.”

Funding for this research is courtesy of the Eck Institute for Global Health and the Glynn Family Honors Program, both at the University of Notre Dame.

Contact:
Damienne Jugovic, Research Communications Specialist
Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame
djugovic@nd.edu / 574.631.7029
research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About the Eck Institute for Global Health
The Eck Institute for Global Health (EIGH), an integral part of Notre Dame Research, builds on the University’s historical strength in infectious disease research, including vector-borne diseases, while broadening the interdisciplinary expertise into other key global health areas including non-communicable diseases; maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); and global health security. EIGH recognizes health as a fundamental human right and promotes research, training, and service to advance health standards and reduce health disparities, especially for those who are disproportionately impacted by preventable diseases. The EIGH is training the next generation of global health researchers and leaders through undergraduate, Master of Science in Global Health, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs.

But there is a solution: More prenatal checkups support improved birth outcomes. That is a key finding of a new study co-authored by University of Notre Dame researchers, which provides new causal evidence from The Gambia that can help improve the health of newborns. The study was published in PLOS Global Public Health.

“Newborn health, measured by birth weight, is an important marker that not only reflects an infant's immediate well-being but also predicts future health and development,” said co-author Santosh Kumar Gautam, associate professor of development and global health economics and director of doctoral studies in sustainable development for the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. “Our study found that more prenatal checkups produce better birth outcomes, and these findings can inform policies that will prioritize the health of mothers and their newborn children.”

Previous studies in other contexts have shown a causal link between prenatal checkups and improved birth outcomes, Gautam said. Within The Gambia, previous studies had shown an association between checkups and outcomes, but there was limited empirical evidence estimating the causal effects these checkups have on low birth weight. However, in this latest study, Notre Dame researchers moved beyond correlation to demonstrate a causal link, Gautam said.

The study analyzed data on more than 4,400 births from the 2019-20 Gambian Demographic and Health Survey. Researchers found that each prenatal checkup was associated with a small increase in birth weight — about .77 ounces — and a 1.2 percent reduction in low birth weight, Gautam said.

But Gautam stressed that prenatal checkups had a cumulative effect: Mothers who had four or more prenatal checkups were 3.9 percent less likely to have a newborn with low birth weight than mothers who had fewer than four checkups. The average treatment effect for having four or more checkups was a 2.5-ounce increase in birth weight and a 4.7 percent reduction in the incidence of low birth weight. Gautam said these improvements would help to reduce deaths within the first month and the first year after birth.

Prenatal checkups play a vital role in detecting and managing conditions like intrauterine growth restriction, Gautam said, which occurs when a baby does not grow at the expected rate during pregnancy. The interventions delivered during these visits, including iron and folic acid supplementation and ongoing education about healthy behaviors, can target the causes of low fetal growth and ensure babies have a healthy weight at birth, he said.

Gautam co-authored the study with Alasana Suso, a 2024 graduate of the Keough School's Master of Global Affairs program, and Elizabeth Wood, associate professor of the practice and director of the Master of Science in Global Health program within the University's Eck Institute for Global Health.

The research is part of the larger work that the Eck Institute for Global Health does to address the critical healthcare needs of pregnant and postpartum women and their children. Through its Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Initiative, the institute fosters interdisciplinary collaborations and inspires advancements to improve health outcomes around the world. The research is also part of larger work by the Keough School to address issues relating to global poverty and inequality.

Gautam and Wood said future research should examine the comprehensiveness and quality of prenatal checkups to determine which components most effectively support fetal growth and neonatal survival in resource-constrained settings such as The Gambia.

Ultimately, researchers said, this study and new work that builds on it can provide additional evidence that will inform public health policy and improve birth outcomes.

“Our findings are especially valuable for guiding policy in sub-Saharan Africa, as they highlight both the quantity and quality of care as essential for meaningful gains in neonatal health,” Wood said. “These insights underscore the urgent need for sustained investments to ensure mothers have access to comprehensive prenatal checkups so that their children start life on a healthy path.”

Originally published by Josh Stowe at keough.nd.edu on June 19, 2025.