The National Academy of Sciences awarded its 2018 Public Welfare Medal to physician, anthropologist and humanitarian Paul Farmer.
The award recognizes Farmer’s work pioneering enduring, community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings in the U.S. and other countries.
The medal, presented on April 29 during the Academy's 155th annual meeting, is the Academy's most prestigious award, established in 1914 and presented annually to honor extraordinary use of science for the public good.
Farmer, the Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard University, is co-founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health, an international social justice and health organization that serves poor communities in 10 countries around the world. He is also chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“Paul Farmer’s visionary, holistic approach to caring for those who are so often left behind has revolutionized global public health,” said Susan Wessler, home secretary of the National Academy of Sciences and chair of the selection committee for the award. “He has inspired a new generation of health practitioners to follow in his footsteps, and his legacy of forging connections between health care delivery, social justice and policy advocacy will continue for many decades to come.”
