In the biggest gift to Harvard University in more than 20 years, a private
Swiss foundation has given $20 million to the university鈥檚 School of Public
Health to fund research into the links between health and human rights.
The Association Francois-Xavier Bagnoud, set up three years ago, is
named after a helicopter rescue pilot who was killed in a flying accident
in 1986. Jonathan Mann, professor of international health at Harvard and
the former director of the WHO鈥檚 Global Programme on AIDS, will be the centre鈥檚
first director.
The aim of the centre will be to research, document and analyse the
effects of human rights abuses such as torture on health. Mann said it was
clear that 鈥榤ore subtle human rights鈥�, such as the status of women, the
right to information, work, and shelter are also linked with health.
Advertisement
