Dr. Abdullah Baqui has spent most of his career working to reduce child mortality, particularly in the areas of diarrheal diseases, micronutrients, and vaccines in his native Bangladesh. His groundbreaking work on newborn mortality and stillbirths, published in the Lancet paper of the Year (2008) outlined strategies that are simple but effective in reducing preventable newborn deaths and, importantly, are capable of being replicated widely throughout the world. Since this paper was published, the newborn mortality rate has significantly decreased.
Abdullah is Professor, Department of International Health and Deputy Director, International Center for Maternal and Newborn Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. He teaches courses on urban health and health information systems and has mentored numerous community health practitioners. His current research to improve child health and survival by enhancing the understanding of the major causes of childhood morbidity and mortality and by designing and/or testing cost-effective public health interventions against them is important to the work of CORE Group colleagues. His research includes : 1) Development of interventions to improve perinatal and neonatal health and survival; 2) Epidemiology of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (e.g., Acute Respiratory Infections, Tuberculosis), 3) Evaluation of diarrhea and ARI vaccines (e.g., shigella vaccine, Hib vaccine), 4) Evaluation of health impact of different formulations of micronutrients, and 5) Evaluation including cost-evaluation of the Integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) strategy which is part of WHO’s multi-country evaluation of IMCI strategy. Additionally, he is interested in research related to urban health care issues and in operations research to improve the management, quality and sustainability of health care delivery systems.