Impacts of Conflict on Population Health
October 26th, 2016
Please join the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the Washington Global Health Alliance, and the World Affairs Council of Seattle in welcoming Dr. Riyadh Lafta, a professor of medicine at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad and Affiliate Professor at University of Washington.
Dr. Lafta has wide ranging interests and capacities, as a physician, a medical school professor, a former Ministry of Health official, and public health researcher. He has done extensive research on the health effects of war on multiple vulnerable populations, including women and children.
This event is part of the 2016-2017 Community Programs Global Health Series
About the speaker:
Dr. Riyadh Lafta is a professor of medicine at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, Iraq, and an Affiliate Professor at University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Lafta co-authored (with Johns Hopkins colleagues) the two famous Lancet articles in 2004 and 2006 that estimated Iraqi mortality associated with the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He has been affiliated with the UW since faculty there collaborated with him to obtain data on childhood leukemia from Basrah University in 2005 (a paper was eventually published in 2010).
The UW’s Department of Global Health has sought to bring Dr. Lafta to Seattle since 2006, but war-related instability made it impossible for him to obtain a visa for travel until this year.
Dr. Lafta is a medical doctor (1984) and completed his PhD in Public health and community medicine in 1994 in Iraq. He has worked in Iraq hospitals (1984-1997), with the Iraq Ministry of Health (1995-97), and as a supervisor for the National Immunization Campaigns in rural areas (UNICEF, 1996-97). He’s completed several projects with the World Health Organization (WHO), and is addressing the American Public Health Association in November 2016 in Denver. His research is focused on a range of population health issues, including conflict epidemiology, malaria screening, pregnancy outcomes, vaccines, diabetes, obesity, and injury. He was nominated for the Jonathan Mann Award, USA, 2007. He has supervised more than 30 PhD fellows, and is an editorial board member for various international journals. He has published more than 90 articles.
This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and Washington Global Health Alliance