United Arab Emirates sponsors UNC research

The Gillings School of Global Public Health gained $12.1 million and international notice a year ago when the United Arab Emirates hired UNC researchers to assess the negative impacts of its rapid development.

Researchers look at the contract as a chance to work with state-of-the-art environmental research methods while further expanding the school’s impact.

Jacqueline MacDonald, the project’s principal researcher, said the United Arab Emirates has developed so quickly that environmental health has been a back-burner issue until now. She added that the country didn’t have researchers with the same expertise as UNC faculty members.

The 32,270-square-mile country just east of Saudi Arabia has been rapidly transformed in the past few decades as a result of oil wealth.

“They’re a very new country,” she said. “Not too long ago, they were a country of nomads. They had never really worried about the environment before.”

Researchers from UNC are leading a team that consists of United Arab Emirates University’s Department of Community Medicine and the RAND Corporation, a global public policy research institute.

This research team is responsible for developing a national environmental health strategy, reporting on the environment, conducting surveys to determine how health is affected by air pollution and evaluating the United Arab Emirates’ procedures for monitoring air quality.

International stature

The project is now at its halfway point, and the school is starting to feel the intrinsic benefits of working abroad.

“This is a very prestigious contract. It not only brought dollars into the school, it gave us the opportunity to work in a very exciting part of the world,” said Barbara Rimer, School of Public Health’s dean.

United Arab Emirates officials approached the top three United States public health schools: Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University and UNC.

MacDonald said the project is opening up a lot of global connections for researchers as well as forming camaraderie both within the school and abroad.

“The numerous challenges associated with conducting such a large research effort in a country on the other side of the world, with a culture that is very different from our own, have forged close bonds among the many faculty members involved in the research,” she said.

Rimer and MacDonald both said the work is bringing UNC’s environmental researchers global recognition.

Rimer said the work with the United Arab Emirates will make the school more competitive for similar environmental risk managing contracts across the globe.


Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.