Second 2024 SPH Alum Receives Fulbright Award.

Sadie Cowan (Photo: Megan Jones)
SPH Alum Receives Fulbright Award to Study Tuberculosis Care in India
Sadie Cowan (SPH’24), a graduate of the 4+1 program and the second SPH recipient of a 2024 Fulbright Award, will examine undernutrition among patients receiving TB treatment.
During her speech at the School of Public Health convocation in May, Kate Walsh, secretary of health and human services for Massachusetts, described the post-graduation plans of several members of the class of 2024 to highlight the impressive public health legacy SPH graduates are well on their way to building. Among those mentioned was “a Fulbright scholar on their way to India.”
Sadie Cowan (CAS‘23,SPH‘24), the Fulbright scholar on her way to India, says she was delighted to be recognized. While she never crossed paths with the secretary, Cowan completed her practicum in the Executive Office of Health and Human Services on MassHealth’s Health Equity Taskforce.
“I loved working for the state. I worked on really an amazing team,” says Cowan, who holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from BU and on May 18 earned an MPH with concentrations in global health and health policy and law from SPH through BU’s 4+1 program. “It was really empowering to be coming from such a justice- and public-service minded program, having my practicum be in a state agency that also had that justice mindset. It reaffirmed that what I want to be doing is health equity, accessibility, and quality work.”
Cowan found her niche in the sociology of health and healthcare during undergrad after taking a class with Joseph Harris, an associate professor of sociology who conducts research at the intersection of sociology, political science, and public health. Harris has received two Fulbright grants to study the politics of health policy in Thailand and quickly became a mentor to Cowan, encouraging her to lean into her interest in global health and later, leading up to her graduation from SPH, supported her application for her own Fulbright.
Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international and cultural exchange program. Through partnerships with more than 140 countries worldwide, Fulbright grants offer select graduating college seniors, graduate students, and young professionals the opportunity to pursue graduate study, conduct research, or teach English abroad. Fulbright scholars become part of a global network intended to foster mutual understanding and peaceful relations between nations.
Beginning in August, Cowan will spend nine months in New Delhi conducting social epidemiology and infectious disease research on a Fulbright-Nehru Student Research grant. While she visited India for a wedding in 2022, it will be her first time conducting research in the country. She spoke with SPH about the development of her project.
Q&A
With Sadie Cowan
What motivated you to pursue a Fulbright research grant?
Over the past two years, I have seen that a lot of my professors in the health policy program and in the global health program have this sweet spot between field time and teaching time and research. I just kept encountering people who have these amazing careers and are here in Boston, but they are also everywhere—they are somehow doing it all. Veronika Wirtz, for example, was one of my favorite professors. I had her for the Foundations in Global Health course. I just knew that to feel like I could cut it in academic research too I needed to get out in the field and get exposure. Fulbright felt like a natural next step for me.
Could you elaborate on your proposed research project for your Fulbright-Nehru grant?
I connected with an incredible infectious disease doctor and a professor at [Boston Medical Center], Dr. Pranay Sinha. Dr. Sinha is based in Boston but his epidemiological research on tuberculosis (TB) and undernutrition spans across several countries including India, Benin, and Togo. His research has found that by increasing a person’s body mass from undernourished to normal levels, it cuts their risk for contracting TB in half. With my background in sociology, health policy, and global health, collaborating with him on his work felt fitting. I think we complement each other well; I have this qualitative, social sciences background that he has been looking to incorporate into his research.
My proposed project is two-tailed. One part is about this relationship between undernutrition and TB, and what a person’s functional recovery looks like when they are receiving nutritional subsidies during TB treatment. I want to use that data to support the other part of the project, which is about the importance of nutritional subsidies in social welfare programs.
India has a politically well-supported national welfare program that I am hoping to better understand and evaluate. We want to learn how to leverage this program to attain global TB goals. We know from Dr. Sinha’s research that nutrition is this huge determinant—in India, one in five TB cases can be attributed to undernutrition—and we can see the way that it positively impacts people to have access to food. This social welfare program tries to do exactly that: give people with TB access to nutritional subsidies and specific medical care, but [the program] has less than 20 percent uptake. I am trying to better understand what is keeping people from accessing it.
How will you gather data?
Right now, the study that we are seeking approvals for is a qualitative, patient-centered study, talking with TB patients, trying to understand their experience with TB care and their experience—or lack of—with social welfare in India. Hopefully, we will conduct interviews at the beginning and the end of TB treatment, which is about six months. I am not fluent in Hindi, but Fulbright has an incredible grant that I am so honored to have received, which is a critical language enhancement grant, so I will spend my first three months in India doing Hindi school. Obviously after three months, I will not be able to run interviews on my own, but it will be cool to be able to interact with patients on a basic level and say, “Hey, I am here. I am doing this work, but also here is a research assistant who is going to be asking you questions.”
What are your expectations for the experience?
My main goal going in and my main expectation is just to get exposure and learn from people who have made their careers working in TB and trying to improve the provision of TB care in a country where TB is so prevalent. The US has its own problems—we have epidemics of our own, but TB is such an interesting case study because its transmission is so heavily affected by the social determinants of health, factors such as poverty and the poorly ventilated, crowded living quarters associated with it, for example. I think that is really where my background comes in. I am not an expert though and I am really going in just ready to learn, be a sponge, and I hope that in the end we can produce some impactful research. This is an opportunity and a program that’s goal is to promote a bilateral relationship between the US and India, for me to be able to learn from these Indian scholars, epidemiologists, and academics and hopefully bring something back here that will help me in a career in US government, global health, or aid work. That is the part of Fulbright that I really enjoyed compared to some of the other fellowships I was looking at—Fulbright really promotes this message of mutual understanding and collaboration. I am excited to be participating in that.
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