UM Ethics Programs Named World Health Organization Collaborating Center

3/20/2008

The University of Miami Ethics Programs have been designated a Collaborating Center in Ethics and Global Health Policy by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. UM's center is only the third of its kind in the world to receive this designation and the first ever in the United States.

The designation is in part recognition of the Ethics Programs nearly two decades of work in ethics education, research and public policy in Latin America, the Caribbean and other regions, according to Kenneth Goodman, Ph.D., co-director of the UM Ethics Programs and director of the University's Bioethics Program at the Miller School of Medicine. "This recognition underscores and affirms UM's commitment to ethically optimized international research and public policy, " he said. "It is also a mark of a great university's dedication to collaborative research in a global context. "

The UM Ethics Programs are directed by Anita Cava, J.D., an associate professor of business law, and Goodman, an associate professor of medicine at the Miller School of Medicine and an associate professor of philosophy.

The collaborating center application process is arduous and requires several layers of review. In the case of the UM Ethics Programs, center status was first endorsed by leadership of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the regional branch of the World Health Organization. The UM Ethics Programs have worked with PAHO for many years on projects around the Americas. WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan, from the People's Republic of China, gave final approval of the designation.

"The World Health Organization's ethics and health unit is very pleased that the UM Ethics Program has been designated as a WHO Collaborating Center, " said Andreas Reis, M.D., M.Sc., of the Department of Ethics, Equity, Trade and Human Rights of the WHO. "We look forward to strengthening our collaboration with the UM program, as the WHO's work on ethics will greatly benefit from future joint activities in the areas of ethics training and research ethics."

UM's Ethics Programs have been invited to participate in PAHO's Advisory Committee on Health Research (PAHO/ACHR), to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, next month, to help advise the committee on ethical issues in research. In addition to Brazil, the UM Ethics Programs have fostered or are working on projects or have been invited to participate in activities in Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and others. Many of the programs have been in conjunction with the CITI Program, the world's leading online research ethics education program.

Key aspects of the UM Ethics Programs international work are being led by Sergio, Litewka, M.D., M.P.H., who is coordinating research ethics education efforts in Latin America, and Raul de Velasco, M.D., director of clinical ethics.

The world's other two collaborating centers in ethics are the Joint Center for Bioethics at the University of Toronto and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Studies on Bioethics at the University of Chile in Santiago.