{"id":26587,"date":"2024-01-22T09:19:16","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T14:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/?p=26587"},"modified":"2024-07-10T14:44:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T18:44:21","slug":"from-building-local-government-capacity-to-improving-childhood-nutrition-meet-the-2024-human-capital-initiative-core-faculty-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/2024\/01\/22\/from-building-local-government-capacity-to-improving-childhood-nutrition-meet-the-2024-human-capital-initiative-core-faculty-members\/","title":{"rendered":"From Building Local Government Capacity to Improving Childhood Nutrition: Meet the 2024 Human Capital Initiative Core Faculty Members"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kebumen, Indonesia. Photo by Dikaseva via Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Maureen Heydt<\/a><\/p>\n

The Boston University Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center) is pleased to announce the second cohort of <\/span>Human Capital Initiative<\/span><\/a> (HCI) Core Faculty Program. These seven full-time BU faculty members represent diverse departments across the University, including the Departments of Global Health and Epidemiology<\/span>, Sociology, Economics, Health Sciences and the Pardee School of Global Studies. They join the other 10 HCI Core Faculty Members to work on academic and policy outputs that are commensurate with HCI\u2019s mission.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>HCI Core Faculty Program<\/a> <\/b>provides seed grants, opportunities for collaboration and administrative resources to outstanding BU researchers whose scholarship is centered around issues related to human capital, social and economic development and human well-being. The aim of the program is to actively support faculty research activities in these focal areas and to foster engagement within the BU human capital research community at large. <\/span><\/p>\n

Below, meet the 2024 HCI Core Faculty Members and learn about their human capital research interests:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Salma Abdalla is a Core Faculty Member of the Human Capital Initiative at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center and an Assistant Professor in Global Health and Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding how microsocial forces shape the health of the population. In particular, she studies how data on the social, economic and commercial determinants can be used to inform decision-making on health and health equity in different contexts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As an HCI Core Faculty Member, her research<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>will focus on three areas: an examination of how global structures, such as trade regulations, and local\/national social determinants of health impact global health equity within and across countries, an exploration of the potential for collecting and using\u00a0data from different sources to inform, and evaluate, decision-making processes beyond the healthcare sector in different countries and lastly, to document the population mental health impacts of mass traumatic events, focusing on the links between socio-economic stressors and mental health. Additionally, she plans to further explore the mental health consequences of gender-based traumas, leveraging both traditional research methods and complex system approaches.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Nina Brooks is a Core Faculty Member of the Human Capital Initiative at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Her research interests are in understanding the environmental and social determinants of health and generating evidence to inform climate and health policy, primarily in the Global South.<\/span><\/p>\n

She is interested in leveraging a global gridded dataset on humid-heat <\/span>events (produced as part of an existing project) to study the impact of humid-heat exposure <\/span>on child health and educational outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. Additionally, she is interested in using this <\/span>same humid-heat data set to explore how health service access, particularly prenatal care, <\/span>may be affected by increasingly hot conditions. Other planned work in this area will be to study <\/span>whether the implementation of maternal and child health programs may help to moderate <\/span>the negative effects of extreme heat exposure, as well as develop targeted interventions for <\/span>providing early warnings and actionable recommendations to pregnant people. Then, building <\/span>on her earlier work on the brick kiln industry in Bangladesh, she plans to study how occupational <\/span>exposure to heat and air pollution among kiln workers affects labor productivity. Finally,<\/span>\u00a0Brooks plans to leverage her expertise on air pollution to explore how exposure to both extreme <\/span>heat and air pollution intersect to increase vulnerability.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t

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