Pitt Momentum Fund, University of Pittsburgh, written with Webel, Mari and Krier, Sarah Elizabeth and Bui, Thuy and Sirleaf, Matiangai and Dietrich, Michael and Van Panhuis, Wilbert (2020).
"We propose a new, multidisciplinary research team to explore historical and ongoing dynamics that have influenced the scientific priorities, funding resources, and research capacities focused on the “neglected tropical diseases” (NTDs). The NTDs are a suite of high-morbidity, low-mortality illnesses, generally affecting impoverished populations, that have animated significant financial, human, and technical resources toward their elimination or eradication in the past several decades. Little is known about the historical evolution of this fundamental category in global health research, or of how the designation of an illness as an NTD has impacted the development of new knowledge, diagnostic tools, vaccines, treatments, or laws and policies. A successful Dietrich School Social Science Research Initiative (SSRI)-funded project (2018-19) began to explore the evolution and impact of NTD strategies on global health. Awarded to Professors Dietrich, Sirleaf, and Webel, that SSRI grant funded the development of a comprehensive new database of NTD publications and research trends from 1945 to the present, from which we have identified several crucial inflection points for further research. We have started to analyze preliminary data on a single NTD test case (onchocerciasis), for which we will incorporate additional geographical data on researchers, institutional affiliations, and origins of research samples, as well as funding sources and country-level data on disease prevalence, in order to map and visualize how research and research capacity of this NTD changed over time.