Padian and Dunbar Join Pangaea to Spearhead HIV Prevention Efforts
Pair to continue focus on global women’s health issues
San Francisco, February 29, 2008 – Nancy Padian, Ph.D., an internationally-recognized leader in the epidemiology and prevention of HIV, has joined Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation as Senior Prevention Consultant. Megan Dunbar, Dr.PH, an emerging leader in global HIV prevention efforts among women and youth, has joined Pangaea as Prevention Consultant. Both are also with the Women’s Global Health Imperative (WGHI), a program of RTI International.
Dr. Padian will head up new Pangaea initiatives designed to more closely link HIV prevention and treatment activities, as well as developing special programs focused on women’s health. Her work bridges the gap between traditional infectious disease epidemiology and the broader context of women's reproductive health. Dr. Dunbar will support Pangaea initiatives designed to link HIV prevention and treatment activities, with a particular focus on designing and evaluating special programs on the intersection of poverty, gender and youth development.
Dr. Padian commented: “After many years conducting research on how HIV is transmitted and how it can best be prevented, I’m excited about the potential for applying this knowledge to the kind of large-scale treatment projects that Pangaea engages in. Within the context of our ongoing work at WGHI there are exciting opportunities for collaboration between PGAF and RTI on programs to promote HIV prevention, care and treatment for women around the world.”
Dr. Eric Goosby, Pangaea’s Chief Executive Officer, added: “At this stage of the global epidemic, it’s critically important that we leverage the large investment made in HIV/AIDS treatment infrastructure by developing treatment-based prevention programs and making connections with at-risk populations through people who are being treated for HIV. With the addition of Nancy, Megan and Dr. Rich Needle, who joined us last month from the CDC, Pangaea now has an extraordinarily strong team of experts focused on the development of innovative HIV prevention and treatment programs targeted at women and girls, MSM, and injection drug users.”
In addition to her work with Pangaea, Dr. Padian is the Executive Director of WGHI and a faculty member at the University of California (Berkeley and San Francisco). Her current research focuses largely on developing and evaluating female-controlled methods for disease prevention, such as the diaphragm and microbicides, along with alternative strategies for fostering young women's economic independence, and thus reducing their susceptibility to HIV, STIs, and unwanted pregnancies. She is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, American Epidemiology Society, and the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Disease Research.
Dr. Dunbar’s particular expertise is in designing and evaluating interventions that address the social and economic factors which increase HIV vulnerability, such as gender-based violence and inequities in educational and economic opportunities for girls and women. Formerly with the University of California, San Francisco, now a Public Health Scientist with WGHI at RTI International, Dr. Dunbar has spent nearly a decade leading initiatives in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, where she lived for several years.
Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation is a non-profit consulting organization that supports in-country and international partners in the development of healthcare infrastructure for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention efforts. With a special focus on resource-poor settings and underserved populations, Pangaea helps its partners, which include national health ministries, NGOs, universities, foundations, and corporations, strengthen HIV/AIDS treatment infrastructure and systems of care and develop new treatment capacity in order to increase access to care. Pangaea also designs and pilots innovative, effective approaches to HIV/AIDS treatment and treatment-based prevention that can be scaled for country-wide application. For more information visit www.pgaf.org.
Media Contact: Carl Whitaker 510-847-0599