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Stephanie Ahn, Post-Bachelor Fellow
Pasadena, CA What attracted you to the health metrics field?During my undergraduate work, I was focused mainly on international human rights. In a global poverty class, I learned about Konzo disease in Mozambique. In rural Mozambique, during a famine, mothers and children were dying of a mysterious disease that was permanently paralyzing. An investigation traced it to improperly processed cassava root, which has high levels of cyanide. The women had been eating and feeding this cassava to their children because there was nothing else to eat. Although they tried to educate these women to stop eating the root, the famine was ongoing. The women decided they would rather eat the root than die of starvation. That was my introduction to the world of global health, and it made me realize how complicated it can be to address some of the conditions that are affecting people in developing countries. I applied to the IHME program and was accepted in 2008 but deferred a year so I could take a Fulbright Scholarship and spend a year in South Korea helping with the first-ever study of the prevalence and incidence of autism and other mental disorders there. What work are you doing at IHME?I’m in the Causes of Death group. We are creating a database with all verbal autopsy data from sites around the world. We have started with data extraction, which, in this case, is actually finding where there might be data. We did a comprehensive literature search through PubMed and Google Scholar and found all the studies that have used verbal autopsy. We sent these studies to some of the faculty here who screened them. Based on what they selected, we read through the articles, pulled the numbers out, and put them into a database. We are going through more than 200 studies. How do you think your experience at IHME will contribute to your future work?I’m applying for the Master of Public Health program at the University of Washington, and after that, I intend to pursue a law degree. Initially, I wanted to work for the International Criminal Court, but after being exposed to this world of global public health, I would like to work for an international health organization or large non-governmental organization. The statistical analysis and quantitative skills I am learning now will be useful no matter what field I go into. |
