APB Speaker Daniel Dawes to Lead New School of Global Health at Meharry Medical College
17 Nov 2023
The Board of Trustees of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., has just announced a new school—the School of Global Health—that will create a new generation of health equity leaders dedicated to solving complex global health challenges through multiple disciplines. APB speaker Daniel E. Dawes J.D., is the founding dean and will lead the school. It is the first school of Global Health in the United States.
The School of Global Health at Meharry will foster collaboration among emerging health leaders, allowing them to strategize beyond conventional boundaries to protect vulnerable, underserved and under-resourced communities around the world. Meharry has begun the process to recruit faculty, engage partners and secure accreditation for the School of Global Health, and anticipates beginning to enroll students in the fall of 2024.
The school is an outgrowth of the Institute of Global Health Equity, which Meharry launched in February of 2023. The Meharry Board of Trustees unanimously approved Meharry establishing the School of Global Health at a meeting in October. Meharry also announced members of the school’s founding board of advisors, which is made up of experts from across industries, including two former surgeons general of the United States. Members of the founding board of Advisors will work together to ensure the School of Global Health is a competitive and innovative institution for future students and entrepreneurs.
“As we establish our School of Global Health we are working diligently to take a multidisciplinary approach and bring together world-class experts, researchers and educators with a shared commitment to make global health inequities history,” said Dawes. “As founding dean, my goal is to actualize, operationalize and optimize equitable solutions and responses to our most complex health issues. And with the support and guidance of this brilliant group of health equity experts and champions on our founding advisory board, we are confident that their expertise will help us achieve new heights.”
Before his role at Meharry Medical College, Dawes served as executive director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine and was a professor of health law, policy and management. A trailblazer and nationally respected voice in the health equity movement, his scholarship and leadership, particularly the innovative political determinants of health framework that he pioneered, have resulted in increased policies and laws prioritizing health equity. He is the author of Health Inequities and African Americans: A Comprehensive Examination, which provides a scholarly exploration of the multifaceted dimensions and interrelationships that underlie medical injustices among African Americans.