The Bangalore Boston Nutrition Collaborative (BBNC) has just concluded its seventh annual course on nutrition research methods in Bangalore, India. The initiative is lead by faculty from the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, including Christopher Duggan, Richard Cash, S V Subramanian, Ronald Bosch, and Anuraj Shankar.
The project takes aim at India’s wide range of nutrition and health problems, which require professionals with appropriate skills, knowledge and trans-disciplinary collaborative abilities to influence policy making at the national and global level.
The BBNC was established as collaboration between St. John’s Research Institute (SJRI), Harvard School of Public Health, and Tufts University, with a focus on nutrition research and training. The goals of the BBNC are to conduct an interdisciplinary course, develop web-based courses and identify promising Indian students and junior faculty for graduate training in Boston.
Since 2010, an annual two-week intensive course has been conducted on the SJRI campus taught by international faculty from Indian and US universities. More than 100 students apply yearly for approximately 30 positions. The course had didactic lectures in the morning and practical hands-on sessions in the afternoon, covering topics such as Nutritional Physiology, Health Policy and Nutrition, Ethics in Nutrition and Global Health, Nutrition in Humanitarian Emergencies, and Nutritional Epidemiology.
Nearly 400 graduates of the program now work at academic, governmental and non-governmental organizations throughout south Asia and east Africa.
