Spring Break
Things I've learned with Professor David Bishai
Issue date: 10/18/07
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Just before beginning his interview with the News-Letter, David Bishai was on the phone attempting to get in contact with a former student of his who happens to be the Minister of Defense in Uganda.
Such a statement seems almost exotic but after the explanation that Bishai, a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, does a significant amount of his economic research in Uganda, it doesn't seem so strange.
Bishai is a professor of economic at the School of Public Health. As an economist, his research approaches public health problems as a social science. He specifically looks at population medicine in terms of cost and efficiency. In a discipline where an emphasis on the biological sciences dominates, speaking with Bishai sheds new light on the diversity that exists in the realm of public health.
Bishai's interest in Public Health began when he was a junior in college. "I was sitting in class and my professor showed me the population curve, and when you see that picture, immediately you realize something amazing has happened. Every generation has its crisis, and back in the 1980s, my generation, there was a population boom. Over-population back then was a big problem, comparable to the problems of terrorism and homeland security issues today," he said.
The issue of overpopulation was what drove Bishai into the field of public health. "We need better contraceptive technology and we need better economics in order to move those medicines out to the people. So both of those problems are what make public health; it is the application of health and science to the population. So I knew I wanted to become a doctor and economist."
Her two loves give Bishai a unique role at the School of Public Health, where he is one of the school's six economists.
"I use economics to solve public health problems. Our school has epidemiologists, statisticians, lab and bench scientists, and social scientists and I am one of the few in the social science field. The school has to tackle economics problems. Such problems are how to get medicines to the people," he said.
Such a statement seems almost exotic but after the explanation that Bishai, a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, does a significant amount of his economic research in Uganda, it doesn't seem so strange.
Bishai is a professor of economic at the School of Public Health. As an economist, his research approaches public health problems as a social science. He specifically looks at population medicine in terms of cost and efficiency. In a discipline where an emphasis on the biological sciences dominates, speaking with Bishai sheds new light on the diversity that exists in the realm of public health.
Bishai's interest in Public Health began when he was a junior in college. "I was sitting in class and my professor showed me the population curve, and when you see that picture, immediately you realize something amazing has happened. Every generation has its crisis, and back in the 1980s, my generation, there was a population boom. Over-population back then was a big problem, comparable to the problems of terrorism and homeland security issues today," he said.
The issue of overpopulation was what drove Bishai into the field of public health. "We need better contraceptive technology and we need better economics in order to move those medicines out to the people. So both of those problems are what make public health; it is the application of health and science to the population. So I knew I wanted to become a doctor and economist."
Her two loves give Bishai a unique role at the School of Public Health, where he is one of the school's six economists.
"I use economics to solve public health problems. Our school has epidemiologists, statisticians, lab and bench scientists, and social scientists and I am one of the few in the social science field. The school has to tackle economics problems. Such problems are how to get medicines to the people," he said.
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