With global health training at UNC, young investigators launch promising careers

March 12, 2009 -- Kathryn Muessig, a doctoral student at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has been awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Muessig was a 2007 UNC Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholar (FICRS). The UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases is a partner in the FICRS program and trains one scholar per year at the Chinese National Center for STD and Leprosy Control in Nanjing, China (NCSTDLC).

“This award is not only great recognition for Kate’s hard work, but it shows the importance of the Fogarty program that got her started in China,” says Muessig’s Fogarty mentor, Dr. Myron Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases.

This award is a two-year, predoctoral training program of interdisciplinary research, teaching, and professional academic experiences aimed toward the completion of a doctoral degree and pursuit of a career in public health research. The project is a collaboration between the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill, and the NCSTDLC.

Muessig’s dissertation is entitled “Migration, work, and HIV/STI risk among male migrant workers in three Chinese cities.” China has over 120 million rural to urban migrant workers and growing epidemics of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI). The study uses qualitative methods to describe HIV/STI health and migration, work, relational histories of rural to urban migrant men, and migrant men who find work selling sex in three Chinese cities.

"I am excited to be working on a project at the intersection of multiple social phenomena in Chin, Muessig says. According to Cohen, “Her work will make an important contribution to STD/HIV prevention."

Kate has been living in China for the past two years. Her previous U.S.-based research focused on improving provision of mental and physical health services for vulnerable populations. She has worked as a research assistant for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and as a research consultant for George Washington University School of Health Policy and Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases contact: Lisa Chensvold, (919) 843-5719, lisa_chensvold@med.unc.edu