Nancy Fullman

What attracted you to the health metrics field?

Since middle school, I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. However, while I was working at the National Institute of Mental Health after college, I found myself more interested in how population-level issues, such as health care access and quality, affected patients. As I learned more about “public health” through seminars at NIH and coursework, I knew I had found a field that combined my interests in socio-political factors and medicine with a broader, populace-based scope. The “metrics” aspect of IHME’s health research was a big draw for me. I have witnessed how inadequately defined and poorly analyzed data can have an impact on the quality of information feeding into health care and policy decisions in numerous settings, so IHME’s rigorous evidence-based approaches to public health aligned very well with my values and scientific standards.

What work are you doing at IHME?

My work at IHME has centered around malaria control. I am part of a team that has created a new model for estimating the number of insecticide-treated bed nets in countries that have a high burden of malaria. I helped develop a new method for utilizing survey data to estimate actual counts of bed nets at the national level. For the first time, we were able to say what percentage of homes had at least one bed net in each country every year. These results have been featured in the 2009 and 2010 WHO World Malaria Reports, and were published in PLoS Medicine in August 2010. I also work on IHME's Malaria Control Policy Assessment (MCPA) project, which evaluates the relationship between the scale-up of various child health interventions and child health outcomes in two countries. This summer I worked in Zambia researching the country’s malaria control policies to better inform the project’s analyses. While there, I could see how my research at IHME translates to an applied setting. Further, we are developing a survey-based method to determine whether the use of these bed nets is effective in preventing or reducing malaria and child mortality.

How do you think your experience at IHME will contribute to your future work?

I worked for a time at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law as a research assistant, which made me want to pursue a law degree and focus on public health law and health policy. My experience at IHME has been instrumental in further developing this career path because I have been able to build a great foundation for analyzing, and, hopefully someday, devising global health policies. From our weekly critiques of public health research articles to discussing aspects of agency governance with the likes of Peter Piot, I have learned so much about the science and political decisions that shape national and global health agendas. Whether I find work at the World Health Organization or in the nonprofit realm, I know that I will have this invaluable set of tools to use thanks to my time at IHME.

Published Works