Advisory Commissioners Learn of Rand Center Seeks to Make Health a Key Component of U.S. Foreign Policy and Respond to Terrorism

WASHINGTON – RAND today announced the creation of a Center for Domestic and International Health Security, a major initiative that seeks to make health a key component of U.S. foreign policy, strengthen the preparedness and response of the U.S. health care system to terrorism, and prepare Americans to cope with the psychological effects of terrorism.

The Center will work to improve health care around the world to save lives and reduce human suffering, strengthen America’s relations with other countries and their people to reduce hostility to the United States, address some of the root causes of terrorism, and help America’s health care system increase homeland security.

The Center, which is part of RAND Health, is a response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. It has more than $4 million in initial funding, and will be supported by research grants and charitable contributions.

Dozens of RAND researchers from a broad range of fields – including physicians and other health professionals, foreign policy experts, political scientists, economists, statisticians, behavioral scientists and sociologists – will work on Center projects.

Center researchers will conduct studies of some of the key health issues facing the world today, working with the U.S. government, foreign governments, health care providers, pharmaceutical companies and others.

Dr. Kenneth I. Shine, a leading authority on international health issues, is the new Director of the RAND Center for Domestic and International Health Security. Before joining RAND in early July, Shine spent 10 years as President of the Institute of Medicine, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. He previously served as Dean and Provost for Medical Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. A cardiologist and physiologist, he received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1961.

"Good health is a universal value that transcends religion, culture and politics – we all want good health for ourselves and for our families, " Shine said. "Those who work to save lives and fight disease are commonly accepted and welcomed by people around the world where others are not. By making improved health care a key element of our foreign policy, the United States can make our nation more accepted and welcomed abroad. It’s hard to hate a nation that has helped save your life or cure your sick child."

Shine discussed the RAND Center for Domestic and International Health Security this morning at a meeting of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy at the U.S. State Department. He was joined by: C. Ross Anthony, Associate Director for International Health at the Center; and Robert Hunter, RAND Senior Advisor, who is also associated with the Center and who served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 1993 to 1998. The Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy provides oversight of U.S. government activities intended to understand, inform and influence the public in other countries.

"This innovative center has the opportunity to change public diplomacy for the better," said Harold C. Pachios, Chairman of the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. "Communicating the mechanisms to achieve quality health care around the globe will alleviate the suffering of many, and improve America's image abroad."

Here are details of the goals of the Center for Domestic and International Health Security:

• Making health a key component of U.S. foreign policy. The Center was established to make health care an important consideration in foreign policy development and to strengthen U.S. ties to other countries – particularly developing nations – by helping to improve health care for their people. The Center will conduct the basic research needed to assess and evaluate policy alternatives and their effects – including unintended consequences – and provide that information to foreign policy leaders. The Center will also look for and analyze innovative and effective ways to help countries deal with critical problems such as: the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other infectious diseases; and critical shortages of medical equipment, drugs and health care professionals. Early Center activities will include establishing an institute to provide training programs in health policy issues to U.S. diplomats and agencies; building and evaluating health care partnerships linking U.S. health care institutions to organizations abroad; and working with developed nations to fashion a global agenda to promote better health.

• Strengthening the response of the health care system to terrorism. The Center will pursue a broad range of activities designed to improve the capability of the public health and health care delivery systems in the United States to respond more rapidly, effectively and in a more coordinated manner to attacks by terrorists involving smallpox, anthrax, and other viruses and bacteria. Activities will include research on: the detection and treatment of infections; vaccines and other measures to prevent disease; improved ways to license and quickly produce medical diagnostic tests and treatments; and evaluations of new medical technologies. One project already in progress is studying ways to improve the disease detection system in the Washington, DC area.

• Preparing Americans to cope with the psychological effects of terrorism. RAND began monitoring the psychological effects of the September 11 attacks soon after they occurred. The new Center will help design practical and effective tools and tactics to help physicians, teachers, employers and the media accurately communicate about terrorist threats without creating panic. These tools will include training materials to help physicians better recognize and care for terrorist-related psychological trauma, as well as trauma related to natural disasters and other events. The Center will also produce training materials for teachers in schools and child-care centers.

Shine said improved health care for people in other nations brings them more than the obvious benefits of longer and healthier lives.

"Poor health care breeds poverty, suspicion, ill-will and anger in addition to disease and death," Shine said. "People who can look forward to good health are generally more optimistic, energetic, economically successful, and open to democratic values. They will have fewer children because they know more children will survive, reducing the pressures of overpopulation. They will be able to make long-term investments in their environment, their education, their businesses, their careers, and their lives. And they will want to protect these investments."

In addition, Shine said that because everyone supports improved health, it can be a unifying goal that can get adversaries to work together.

"I have had the opportunity to work with Palestinian, Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian scientists and physicians on joint health projects in the Middle East for more than a dozen years, and I recently chaired a meeting of American and Iranian scientists and physicians," Shine said. "When we focus on working together on common health problems, each person’s political beliefs and nationality become irrelevant – only the scientific data we have collected matters. Health becomes a universal language in addition to a universal goal."

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