About Us

The Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University conducts original research to help decision-makers worldwide build sustainable capacities to prevent, detect, and respond to public health emergencies.

We explore the growing demands on the world’s public health infrastructure, from policies intended to contain transnational disease threats to the economic benefits of promoting health in the world’s poorest nations and the changing roles for health in domestic and international security and diplomacy.

We work with partners across the U.S. government, international organizations, and Ministries of Health, Agriculture, and Defense around the world to understand how leaders define, develop, and sustain preparedness for public health emergencies. We then translate our rigorous and complex research into knowledge products that help decision makers build sustainable capacities to detect and respond to emerging public health threats.

Our Focus Areas

  • Providing policy analysis and technical support related to the Global Health Security Agenda
  • Creating tools and building capacities for the global implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005)
  • Developing content and training foreign affairs experts and health and research professionals in global health diplomacy
  • Evaluating capacities and capabilities for timely, accurate, and safe laboratory testing for priority diseases
  • Evaluating infrastructure, resources, and legislation/policies for and vulnerabilities in national preparedness and response capabilities, including social distancing measures
  • Building capacity through policy development and training in areas related to public health emergency management and One Health disease surveillance
  • Strengthening public health preparedness by developing content and training materials for multi-sectoral engagement in the response to biological threats
  • Supporting the World Health Organization and U.S. government agencies in the development of costing tools to support capacity building for disease detection and response

Funding

We would like to thank the following organizations for their support of our work:

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Carnegie Foundation

Caryl Griffin-Russell and Rick Russell

CDC Foundation

Center for Global Health Engagement

District of Colombia

Global Affairs Canada

Google.org

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Nuclear Threat Initiative

Open Philanthropy

Rockefeller Foundation

Schmidt Futures

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)

U.S. Department of State

U.S. Department of State Biosecurity Engagement Program (BEP)

U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)

University of Montreal

University of Oslo

Vital Strategies

World Health Organization (WHO)

Wynn Resorts

Additional Information

For more information about the international community’s efforts in the field of global health security, please check out the following resources*:

Global Health Security, by the World Health Organization  (new window)

Global Health Security, by the CDC Foundation  (new window)

Global Health Security Agenda Consortium

*Disclaimer: These links lead to websites that are not under the control of the Center for Global Health Science & Security or Georgetown University. Georgetown University has no control over the nature, content, and availability of those sites. The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.

For more information on any aspect of our work, or information about funding future activities, please contact: globalhealthsecurity@georgetown.edu.