Looking Forward @ Johns Hopkins: Alfred Sommer

Description

Alfred Sommer, dean emeritus of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a professor of epidemiology, will give a lecture via Zoom titled "Do You Really Want to Hear From an Epidemiologist at a Time Like This?" as part of the Looking Forward @ Johns Hopkins remote lecture series. A Q+A session will follow.

Sommer has made a number of discoveries that have led to major advances in global health care and policies. Most notably, his long-term, continuing research involves the cause, magnitude, consequences, and control of vitamin A deficiency and, most recently, those of related micronutrients. In the late 1970s, Sommer and his research team discovered that vitamin A deficiency was far more common than previously recognized and later demonstrated the link between even mild vitamin A deficiency and pediatric mortality. Sommer found that supplements given to vitamin A deficient populations may decrease mortality by as much as 34%. As a result, the World Development Report (World Bank) declared vitamin A supplementation one of the most cost-effective of all health interventions. Sommer's current research interests include outcome assessment, child survival and blindness prevention strategies, micronutrient interventions, and the growing interface between public health and clinical medicine.