Dr. John Ehiri, the new director of MEZCOPH's HPS Division.
The Health Promotion Sciences division of The University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health (MEZCOPH) welcomes a new director, Professor John Ehiri, PhD, MPH, MSc (Econ.). Dedicated to improving the health of women and children throughout the world, he is a man with a ready smile, lots of ideas, and an international education coupled with global experience in maternal and child health.
Prior to coming to The University of Arizona, Dr. Ehiri spent seven years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Public Health where he served as an associate professor in the Departments of Maternal and Child Health and Health Behavior. Originally from Nigeria, he received his Master of Public Health (MPH) in 1992 and doctorate (PhD) in 1997 from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. In addition, he obtained a Master of Science in Economics in Health Policy and Planning from the University of Wales, in Swansea, UK, in 1994. For four years prior to UAB, he served at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, England, where he was the director of the Master of Community Health Program in the Division of International Health and as a lecturer in international health.
“I work hard to be an engaging teacher,” said Dr. Ehiri, who won a prestigious teaching award from the President of UAB, and he is looking forward to meeting and working with MEZCOPH students. Teaching and inspiring the next generation are the greatest contribution that he and other faculty can make to public health, he says.
Global Health Opportunities
For MEZCOPH’s global health agenda, Dr. Ehiri will work to help to advance public health initiatives. “The US - Mexico border is an excellent opportunity in global health issues that not many schools of public health in the United States have access to,” he said. Dr. Ehiri further says that he is “fascinated” by the example of the Border Health Service Learning Institute (BHSLI) which allows students to apply what they have learned in class to border health issues. “That’s the ultimate!” he said enthusiastically. “Knowledge in the classroom is one thing, but being able to apply that knowledge is the highlight of your work. From my experience having been around, that’s what students need in this field. Classroom teaching is a foundation, but being able to really apply that knowledge and have someone supervise you while you’re doing it is the ultimate learning experience. I hope to do a lot more of that.”
Dr. Ehiri's Hopes for HPS
 When asked what his hopes are for the Health Promotion Sciences Division at the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health, Dr. Ehiri answered that his main goal is to lead a “cohesive, vibrant division.” He wants faculty to be proud to work here, and for students to consider it their first choice for a public health education. “I want to make this Division one of the strongest not only in the College but in the country.”
His first task prior to coming to Arizona was to become very familiar with the faculty research here. In doing that he found a distinct synergy between what is already going on here in research and his interests. Behavioral interventions are his primary interest, or modifying social and behavioral factors that produce disease in families, and providing practical services that reduce risk factors for disease. “I have always been very involved in HIV prevention, and global health is my passion,” he said.
In Public Health For His Entire Career
When asked how long he has been interested in public health, Dr. Ehiri said, “I’ve been in this profession all of my adult life.” He has worked in many areas of public health including environmental health, public health systems, planning, policy, evaluation, health behavior and health promotion.
Asked about the status of population health in developing countries, and with particular reference to Nigeria, “the health care system of Nigeria is very rudimentary” and “abysmal,” he said, and typical of many nations. It is based on the concept of primary health care, proposed in the Alma Ata Declaration by UNICEF and the World Health Organization in 1978, which advocates that every individual should have access to basic health care. “But it doesn’t happen that way in many poorer countries,” he said. “In most cases, you have to have money to access health care."
As for the United States’ health care system, he says our nation can certainly do better, and spends much more on health care per person even though everyone is not covered. Dr. Ehiri pointed out that health care needs to be extended to everyone in the U.S., and there should be a focus on prevention, which will automatically reduce health care costs. “You have to assume no health care system is perfect while making changes,” he said, “but we can learn from mistakes and shortfalls from health care systems here and in other countries, and use problems as opportunities to learn.” Health care in many European countries is available to everyone, and the United States is the last industrialized country which does not provide health care to all of its citizens.
Maternal and Child Health
How did he become interested in maternal and child health topics? Growing up in Nigeria, he learned that the most challenges in society affect its most vulnerable members, namely women and children. Public health’s first focus in interventional research has always been his focus. “You always tend to gravitate to women and children in applied public health,” he says. He has always worked in the maternal and child health field.
Dr Ehiri is working on the first comprehensive book addressing international Maternal and Child Health, to be published in September, 2009, by the Springer (New York) publishing company: Maternal and Child Health: Global Challenges, Programs, and Policies. The ISBN number is 978-0-387-89244-3. This landmark volume is designed to be useful to researchers and as a textbook for public health courses. Below is a description:
| Our current era of globalization, war, and socioeconomic unrest has revealed public health as a worldwide concern and a major frontier for social justice, with maternal and child health at its epicenter. Yet, there has been a relative scarcity of training resources specifically dedicated to this crucial area. Maternal and Child Health: Global Challenges, Programs, and Policies addresses this gap in current knowledge by analyzing the range of socioeconomic and environmental factors, health care disparities, politics, policies, and cultural practices that impact the health and safety of mothers, as well as the wellbeing and optimum development of their children. Individual sections focus on unequal distribution of the world’s resources, politics and power, specific disease concerns, programs, policies and emerging concerns, with a focus on what is currently being done, and what needs to be done to improve the health status of women, children, and adolescents. The book’s contributors are some of the world’s most respected experts, carefully selected to represent different global geographic regions and diverse professional disciplines related to maternal and child health from both academic and field practice perspectives. |
Click here for the publisher's information on Dr. Ehiri's book.
Welcome to Tucson!
What does Dr. Ehiri think of the Old Pueblo? “The United States is so vast that Arizona is very different from Alabama,” which he finds very interesting. Dr. Ehiri is excited to live in Arizona and finds the unique Sonoran Desert landscape “very beautiful! Tucson is a wonderful city. I am glad to raise my children here.”
Welcome to MEZCOPH, Dr. Ehiri!
This article written by and photographs by Loretta McKibben.
First posted on August 12, 2009. Last updated on August 19, 2009.
Please send comments to mckibben@email.arizona.edu.
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