The challenge put before NIH’s Black History Month guest speaker was a bit like the task of closing the nation’s health disparities: Engage a widely diverse audience to use their individual skills and talents to increase the world’s potential. Of course keynoter Dr. Eve Higginbotham was atop a much smaller stage.

“We have to bring to this issue our own experiences, our own perspectives,” she said, addressing a Lister Hill Center assembly that included not only NIH scientists, administrators, fellows and other staff, but also about 25 youngsters from J.G. Whittier Education Center. Located in northwest Washington, D.C., the public school, which serves children from preschool age through grade 6, is NIH’s adopted school.
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As a way to improve public health in a battered world, understanding poverty counts as much as knowing how proteins fold. That’s why translational research doesn’t stop at new drugs and vaccines. It includes delivering interventions to those who need them most.

“Global health is suffering from a huge implementation bottleneck…and we’re not doing so well in implementation in the United States,” said Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Jim Yong Kim, plenary speaker at OBSSR’s 2nd annual conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation: Building Research Capacity to Bridge the Gap from Science to Service.
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