Public Health Heroes Awards Ceremony

For his dedication to treating some of the world’s most imporverished populations and raising the standard of health care in poor areas of the world

Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D., is Maude and Lillian Presley Professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a founding director of Partners In Health, an international nonprofit organization that provides direct health care services and undertakes research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Dr. Farmer’s work draws primarily on active clinical practice and focuses on community-based treatment strategies for diseases that disproportionately afflict the poor, health and human rights, and about the role of social inequalities in determining the distribution and outcomes of infectious diseases.

Dr. Farmer is an attending physician in infectious diseases and associate chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and served for ten years as medical director of a charity hospital, L’Hôpital Bon Sauveur, in rural Haiti. Along with his colleagues at BWH, in the Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change at Harvard Medical School, and in Haiti, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, and Malawi, Dr. Farmer has pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies for AIDS and tuberculosis (including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis). Dr. Farmer and his colleagues have successfully challenged the policymakers and critics who claim that quality health care is impossible to deliver in resource-poor settings.


2009 International Hero - Dr. Paul Farmer		Related Links New York Times interview: "Healing the World by Curing the Poor" San Francisco Chronicle: "Tireless Global AIDS Worker" NPR: "The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer" Paul Farmer to UC Berkeley School of Public Health graduates: "Health care is a human right" Dr. Farmer's faculty page, Harvard Medical School Partners in Health
For his dedication to treating some of the world’s most imporverished populations and raising the standard of health care in poor areas of the world Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D., is Maude and Lillian Presley Professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a founding director of Partners In Health, an international nonprofit organization that provides direct health care services and undertakes research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Dr. Farmer’s work draws primarily on active clinical practice and focuses on community-based treatment strategies for diseases that disproportionately afflict the poor, health and human rights, and about the role of social inequalities in determining the distribution and outcomes of infectious diseases. Dr. Farmer is an attending physician in infectious diseases and associate chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and served for ten years as medical director of a charity hospital, L’Hôpital Bon Sauveur, in rural Haiti. Along with his colleagues at BWH, in the Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change at Harvard Medical School, and in Haiti, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, and Malawi, Dr. Farmer has pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies for AIDS and tuberculosis (including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis). Dr. Farmer and his colleagues have successfully challenged the policymakers and critics who claim that quality health care is impossible to deliver in resource-poor settings.