University of California, San Diego, Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla’s visit to Tijuana, B.C., on May 3 included a stop at the Health Frontiers in Tijuana (HFiT) Clinic, a free clinic where students and faculty from the UC San Diego Division of Global Public Health team up with their counterparts from the Universidad Autónomo de Baja California (UABC) to provide health care in one of the poorest parts of Tijuana.
Dr. Jose Luis Burgos with Chancellor Khosla outside HFiT Clinic. Photo by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications
In the photo above, Chancellor Khosla speaks with Jose Luis Burgos, MD, MPH, outside the clinic. An assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Global Public Health, Burgos is a faculty mentor at the clinic and a specialist in global health and development. His current research project: The Role of Economic Evaluation in Translating HIV/AIDS Behavioral Interventions.
At the HFiT Clinic, faculty mentors from both UC San Diego and UABC direct the medical students, fellows and other medical trainees in caring for patients. The clinic is now a part of MED 239, an elective course for medical students in the UCSD School of Medicine.
The students and faculty working in the clinic also contribute to global public health division projects investigating prevention of HIV and STD, substance abuse, policing practices and sex trafficking. | More about current projects
Dr. Steffanie Strathdee during a visit to Tijuana for the El Cuete program, a global public health division epidemiology project tracing HIV, tuberculosis and other infections among injection drug users.
During her presentation on the chancellor’s tour, global public health division chief Steffanie Strathdee said, “We align research, training and service. And we, the professors, learn as much from the students as they learn from us.”
Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, is associate dean of global health sciences, Harold Simon Professor and chief of the Division of Global Public Health and director of the Global Health Initiative at UC San Diego.
Strathdee’s current research projects: Impact of Drug Policy Reform on the HIV Risk Environment Among IDUs in Tijuana (El Cuete, Phase IV) and HIV/STI Risks among FSWs and Their Non-Commercial Partners (Proyecto Parejas).
Dr. Jay Silverman. Photo by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications
At left below, global public health professor Dr. Jay Silverman speaks during a presentation about the division’s work in Tijuana.
Silverman is regarded as the world’s leading public health authority on trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation.
He is principal investigator of the first R01 research grant the National Institutes of Health has ever issued on sex trafficking. Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the four-year project is “Epidemiology of Sex Trafficking, Drug Use and HIV at the U.S.-Mexico Border.”
Drs. Kimberly Brouwer (below) and Victoria Ojeda also presented their projects during the tour.
Dr. Kimberly Brouwer during her presentation in Tijuana. Photo by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications
Brouwer is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Global Public Health. Her work focuses on the spatial and molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases.
She is principal investigator of two R01 research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, one investigating factors that influence HIV transmission in the U.S. – Mexico border region: Evolving HIV/STI Risk Environments of FSWS on the Mexico/U.S. Border.
Victoria Ojeda (below) is an assistant professor in the global health division. Her project, “Social Incorporation Following Deportation and Implications for Health Status and Access to Care,” is based at the HFiT Clinic.
Dr. Victoria Ojeda.
Funding for the project comes from Ojeda’s 2012-2013 University of California Global Health Institute (GloCal) Health Fellowship, one of only three such fellowships awarded last year.
Below, Ojeda is pictured at the HFiT Clinic.
Dr. Victoria Ojeda at the HFiT Clinic in Tijuana, where her GloCal Fellowship project is based.
Chancellor Khosla with members of the Division of Global Public Health.
Sources
Chancellor Khosla’s visit to Tijuana was covered in Kristin Luciani’s UCSD News story, “Cross-Border Connections: Chancellor Visits Tijuana to Learn about Industry, Healthcare and Education,” released May 9. The photos for that story and the images of Drs. Burgos, Silverman and Brouwer and the group shown here are by Erik Jepsen of UC San Diego Publications.
For more information about the global public health division’s projects in the U.S. – Mexico border area and elsewhere in the world, visit the Division of Global Public Health academic website.
