Public Health Professionals from Turkey Visit Mailman School of Public Health

June 25, 2015

Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia Global Centers | Turkey are pleased to welcome three health professionals from Turkey to the New York campus in June. Dr. Onur Özlem Köse, Deputy Director of the Istanbul Public Health Directorate, Dr. Pınar Ay and Dr. Serap Çifçili, both of Marmara University, will be participating in the Epidemiology and Public Health Summer Institute (https://cuepisummer.org), where they will be interacting with leading scholars from Mailman and other health professionals from around the world.

On June 25, they will be joined by experts from Jordan and Lebanon for a panel discussion on "Changing Health Needs in the Middle East and Turkey" moderated by University Professor Wafaa El-Sadr.  Dr. Onur Özlem Köse, Dr. Pınar Ay and Dr. Çifçili will share the latest developments regarding Refugee Health, Obesity and Physical Inactivity, and Changing Eating Habits Amongst Children and Adolescents in Turkey. 

This represents the latest phase of Mailman’s long-term engagement with the Istanbul Center to support knowledge exchange, joint research and capacity building for public health in Turkey and the region. The effort was initiated after a high-level delegation of Columbia scholars led by Dean Linda Fried, visited Istanbul for a series of meetings with government officials and universities in October 2013. Subsequent programs have been supported through a President’s Global Innovation Fund grant led by Prof. Wafaa El-Sadr,  Prof. Miriam Rabkin and Prof. Richard Deckelbaum. Refugee health in Turkey and the Middle East and global humanitarian policy reform will be the focus of the next phase of this program.