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Alfred Sommer Outline

Intro/Background: Alfred Sommer is a highly accomplished epidemiologist and ophthalmologist from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Sommer received his MD in 1967 from Harvard Medical School and then went on to receive his Masters in Health Sciences in 1973 from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. He was formerly the Dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health from 1990 to 2005, and is currently serving as an Epidemiology and International Health Professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health in addition to being an Ophthalmology Professor at the Wilmer Eye Institute. Alfred Sommer first garnered praise and attention for his groundbreaking research on the use of a large and inexpensive Vitamin A capsules to reduce the child mortality rates of Vitamin A deficient children. This Vitamin A capsule that was the focus of Sommer’s research only needed to be administered twice a year and was proven to reduce the child mortality rate (of Vitamin A deficient children) by as much as 34 percent. While serving as the Dean of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Sommer successfully expanded both the faculty and student bodies and dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to improving the school’s emphasis on research and developing world class research facilities. Sommer’s visionary efforts helped the school attain the #1 spot on the U.S. News & World Report Graduate Schools of Public Health ranking, a prestigious title it still holds to this day.

Significant Talking Points: Sommer’s groundbreaking research in regards to blindness prevention has resulted in significant strides in global health as well as a measurable reduction in child mortalities. We intend to delve deeper into Sommer’s research during the 1970s and 1980s, which focused on large, inexpensive doses of Vitamin A and its potential to prevent deaths due to vitamin A deficiency in children. This research was especially meaningful for impoverished area in the U.S. and worldwide that lack access to basic needs or adequate foundational resources such as clean water, staple foods, nearby medical care, etc. We also hope to discover the lasting results of Sommer’s research by examining data from the conducted case studies and examine his role as the founding Director of the Dana Center for Preventative Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins from 1980-1990 (as it relates to his research on eyesight/blindness/Vitamin A).

Considering the 15 extremely successful years Sommer spent as the Dean of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, we hope to study any projects or proposals he implemented that enabled him to further expand the student population and the faculty body. We also intend to look into his methods for funding the renovation of the Bloomberg School and for facilitating its growth into a premier research institution (including the 130 million spent on expanding and updating the school’s research facilities).

Sommer works as both an ophthalmologist in the Wilmer Eye Institute and as an Epidemiology and International Health Professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. We intend to study his work as a doctor and his projects as an epidemiologist to gain more insight regarding the various tasks, and responsibilities he takes on in each role. We also hope to research both his work as a doctor and public health specialist to try and understand how his work in both fields is possibly related and if so, where and why that overlap occurs. We are curious to see how is training and education in public health affects his perception of the clinical work and patient care he engages in as a doctor and vice-versa.

Sommer has received numerous awards and significant recognition for his contributions to the betterment of nutritional and medical (particularly vision) research. We will mention the awards he’s won and why he received these awards including the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1997 and the the Danone International Prize for Nutrition in 2001 (for his groundbreaking studies on Vitamin A and its ability to enhance eyesight and reduce child mortality rates when administered through an inexpensive yet high-dosage capsule). He also later was awarded the Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research (in regards to his studies on blindness prevention).

We intend to address Sommer’s current research interests as well. These include the diagnosis and management of glaucoma, improved child survival and blindness prevention strategies, and micronutrient interventions to vision impairment. In addition, we’ll briefly mention Sommer’s role as director emeritus on the corporate Boards of Directors of Becton Dickinson, an established medical technology company.

Sommers also discovered that supplementing Nepalese women of childbearing age with Vitamin A ot beta-carotene can reduce maternal mortality rate by 45% and newborn vitamin A supplementation can reduce neonatal mortality by 20%.

How we will conduct our research: The main resources that we will use to conduct our research will be medical journals and publications made by Sommer or by others on Sommer’s work. Another primary source however that we hope to get is an interview by phone with Sommers. He is currently a professor of Epidemiology, International Health, and Ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and therefore it might be possible to get an interview. It would be amazing to be able to talk about what got him interested in his research and how we wants to continue his work in field such as the effects of Vitamin A deficiency in children. In order to get credible information from primary and secondary documents, we intend to also reference the Chesney Medical Archives (as listed in the syllabus).