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About David Bangsberg

David Bangsberg, MD, MPH is the former Dean of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, an Associate Professor Harvard Medical School, Visiting Professor at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, and Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health. The MGH Center for Global Health supports 43 programs in 30 countries in order to improve health in the world's most vulnerable populations through leveraging MGH's 200 year history of innovation in medical care and education.
Dr. Bangsberg completed medical school at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his internal medicine residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York, and fellowships in Infectious Disease and AIDS Prevention at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Bangsberg's research focuses on HIV in impoverished populations. In 1996, Dr. Bangsberg launched a series of studies in HIV+ homeless and marginally housed individuals in response to concerns that poor adherence to HIV antiretroviral treatment in the urban poor would create new strains of drug resistant virus. These studies mitigated what we now recognize were exaggerated concerns regarding HIV drug resistance in the urban poor and helped shift the debate from withholding treatment to maximizing treatment effectiveness. In 2001, Dr. Bangsberg launched a series of studies to address similar concerns that the scale-up of antiretroviral therapy to poor regions of the world would similarly lead to unacceptable levels of drug resistance due to the challenges of adhering to antiretroviral therapy in settings of extreme poverty. Contrary to popular opinion, Dr. Bangsberg found that HIV+ people living in sub-Saharan Africa are better able to adhere to antiretroviral therapy than their counterparts in North America. This work was deemed by the editors of The Lancet as among the most important medical findings for 2006 and was described by President Bill Clinton as the "nail in the coffin "on the debate as to whether the poor in Africa could successfully take their HIV treatment. Dr. Bangsberg founded and continues to lead the HIV research program at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Mbarara, Uganda. This program focuses on structural barriers to treatment access and treatment adherence, including poverty reduction to improve transportation to healthcare settings as well as the competing demands of securing food for HIV+ individuals and their families. The program has also developing new technologies to bring the new and established treatment and prevention to the right person at the right time to improve maternal-child health in rural Africa.

Dr. Bangsberg has received research awards from charitable foundations, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control. He was the second highest ranked National Institute of Health RO-1funded investigator in HIV/AIDS in 2007. He is on the Editorial and Advisory Boards of PEPFAR, PLOS Medicine, JAIDS, AIDS Patient Care and STDs, AIDS Care and AIDS and Behavior. He has authored or co-authored over 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and several book chapters

Positions

2014 - Present Visiting Professor, Vellore Institute of Technology
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2009 - Present Visiting Professor, Mbarara University of Science and Technology ‐ Medicine
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2008 - Present Senior Scientist, Harvard Global Health Institute ‐ Medicine
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2016 - 2022 Dean, Portland State University ‐ OHSU-PSU School of Public Health
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2016 - 2022 Dean, Oregon Health and Science University ‐ School of Public Health
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2013 - 2016 Professor, Harvard School of Public Health ‐ Department of Global Health and Populations
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2012 - 2016 Affiliate, Harvard Medical School ‐ Global Health and Social Medicine
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2012 - 2016 Professor, Harvard Medical School ‐ MGH/Global Health and Social Medicine
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2012 - 2016 Professor, Harvard Medical School ‐ Medicine
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2012 - 2013 Professor, Harvard School of Public Health ‐ Department of Global Health and Populations
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2012 - 2012 Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School ‐ Medicine
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2008 - 2010 Visiting Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School ‐ Medicine
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2003 - 2008 Associate Professor, University of California, San Francisco ‐ Medicine
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1998 - 2003 Assistant Professor, University of California, San Francisco ‐ Medicine
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Curriculum Vitae

Disciplines

Research Interests

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Honors and Awards

  • Elected member, American Academy of Physicians, 2014
  • Pioneer Award to recognize the achievements of individuals whose careers have made significant contributions to the fields of HIV/AIDS adherence, prevention, 2013
  • Recipient of A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award Awarded annually to 5 of the 12,000 Harvard Medical School Faculty, 2011
  • Second highest NIH R01-funded investigator in HIV/AIDS for 2007 (2008)
  • UCSF AIDS Research Institute Award for Outstanding Mentoring, 2008

Education

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2013 - 2013 MS, Harvard Medical School ‐ Medicine (Hon.)
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1996 - 1997 MPH, University of California, Berkeley ‐ Epidemology
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1986 - 1990 MD, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine ‐ Medicine
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1985 - 1986 MS, Kings College, University of London ‐ History and Philosophy of Science
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1981 - 1985 BS, University of Rochester ‐ Neuroscience
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Links

Articles (297)