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International impact of studies by Arnold School researchers Frongillo, Karmaus highlighted in Breakthrough Magazine
January 14, 2011
Wilfried Karmaus
Edward Frongillo
Arnold School of Public Health researchers Dr. Edward Frongillo and Dr. Wilfried Karmaus are featured in a story in the Winter Issue of USC's Breakthrough Magazine, which spotlights University faculty conducting research abroad.
Frongillo, professor and chair of the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, has been working to improve educational efforts aimed at providing better nutrition for millions of young children
His efforts range from impoverished regions of Bangladesh and Vietnam to rural areas of Mexico.
The World Bank has funded his work in seven different countries, and the Gates Foundation currently funds his work in Mexico.
"The knowledge gained in one setting is almost always useful in another," said Frongillo. "I've drawn on the work we did in Bangladesh to develop research priorities for infant nutrition programs in the United States.
"Fundamentally, we have the same problems here and the same questions: How do we make nutrition a high priority and implement effective solutions on a large scale," he said.
Karmaus, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, is an expert on environmental exposure and health outcomes in maternal and child care.
His efforts have led him to study an array of diseases from the Isle of Wight to Bulgaria and Ukraine.
"We've been engaged in a longitudinal study at the Isle of Wight that's looking for factors that contribute to asthma and, in Bulgaria, we're studying a disease that shrinks kidneys to the size of walnuts – they're normally the size of two fists," Karmaus said.
"The study in Ukraine is looking at children who have been exposed in utero to the radioactive effects of the Chernobyl accident.
"While I've been engaged in research of each of these places, I also find myself interested in their cultures and understanding their approach. It opens my eyes and I learn a lot," he said.
