A Commitment to the Health of the World’s Poor

In 2001, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a major Harvard teaching hospital, launched a pioneering effort to prevent millions of senseless deaths from treatable, avoidable diseases. Called the Division of Global Health Equity (DGHE), the mission of this new enterprise would be to improve the health of the poor through service, training, research and advocacy. In creating DGHE, Brigham and Women’s affirmed the right of all patients—wherever they are—to the best in modern medicine.

Critical Needs

Generous start-up support from Brigham and Women’s Hospital has helped give DGHE a strong beginning. However, as with almost anything involving the world’s poor, DGHE is uniquely dependant on private philanthropy just to maintain existing programs. 

Donors can support DGHE in several ways: by helping fund young doctors working abroad and by helping fund innovative programs that train new physicians who have chosen a life of work with the poor.  They can also support the PACT Project  for Boston's sickest AIDS patients.


A Record of Leadership

DGHE itself grew out of work started by Drs. Paul Farmer and Jim Yong Kim more than twenty years ago, when they joined with colleagues to open a medical clinic in desperately impoverished rural Haiti. Their goal was to bring the best in modern medicine to those most in need. Their premise was that every life is worth saving. From these beginnings, Farmer and Kim founded Partners In Health, a private charity which has grown to provide top quality medical care and social services to over one million poor patients in Haiti and to thousands more in Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Malawi, Lesotho and inner city Boston.

Learn more…

The Doris and Howard Hiatt Residency in Global Health Equity and Internal Medicine is a comprehensive four-year program that includes training in internal medicine; coursework in research methods, public policy and global health advocacy; and research and patient care experiences in impoverished settings.  Learn more…


You can assist our efforts by  making a gift online  and designating your gift to the Division of Global Health Equity. Please click on the link above and fill out the online donation form. In order for your gift to be received by the Division, you must click "Other" under the statement "Please use my/our gift" and type "Division of Global Health Equity" in the box. You may also send a check. 

Please make your check payable to Brigham and Women's Hospital with a notation on the check or an enclosed note directing your gift to the Division of Global Health Equity.  Checks may be mailed to:

Nancy Sandman
Brigham and Women's Hospital
116 Huntington Avenue, 5th floor
Boston, MA 02116
617.424.4345


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This page was last modified on 10/19/2011