Awards for Pan American Health Leadership

The Pan American Health and Education Foundation,the private philanthropic partner of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), presented two awards for service to public health during the Pan American Sanitary Conference in Washington, D.C., in October.

María Cristina Escobar, of Chile, was awarded the 2007 Abraham Horwitz Award for Leadership in Inter-American Health. During her 20 years in Chile's Ministry of Health, she has advocated for the health of older adults and, in collaboration with professionals from other sectors, helped to develop standards, clinical guides, programs, educational materials, and research projects in disease prevention, cardiovascular health, and diabetes. Escobar helped found the CARMEN Network for the prevention and control of chronic diseases in Latin America and has served as a member of Chile's National Commission of Older Adults and has headed the Chilean Society of Hypertension. She was a recipient of the World Health Organization's Tobacco Free World Award.

Jorge Alberto Álvarez Díaz, of Mexico.

Jorge Alberto Álvarez Díaz, of Mexico, received the 2007 Manuel Velasco-Suárez Award in Bioethics for a proposed study on attitudes of Latin American couples seeking assisted reproductive services and preservation of human embryos. Álvarez is a member of the Mexican National Academy of Bioethics and has taught at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez in Mexico since 2001. He holds a medical degree and masters degrees in bioethics and in human sexuality and is a certified clinical expert in human sexuality. He is currently doing doctoral studies in sociosanitary sciences and medical humanities at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid.The results of his study will be used to develop a plan to create bioethics committees in 11 Latin American countries that preserve embryos and report to the Latin American Network of Assisted Reproduction.

More information on the Pan American Health and Education Foundation awards can be found here.