About the Team

Dr T. Alafia Samuels, Principal Investigator

Dr Alfia Samuels

Dr Samuels is currently Director of the Chronic Disease Research Centre and Deputy Dean for Graduate Studies and Research in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies.

Through work in Public Health in Jamaica and then with PAHO and CARICOM, Dr Samuels has international project management experience within the Caribbean and excellent links to a range of institutions, including most national ministries of health.

Dr Samuels is currently a member of the Barbados National Non-Communicable Diseases Commission.

She is the principal author of the Barbados Ministry of Health Strategic Plan of Action for the Prevention and Control of NCDs 2015-2019 as well as the CARICOM Regional NCD Plan 2011-2015. She has reported annually to the Ministers of Health Annual Caucus on the status of NCD programmes in the region 2008–2015.

Holding an MPH (Masters in Public Health), Dr Samuels also has a PhD in Chronic Disease Epidemiology, both degrees awarded with honours from Johns Hopkins University.

Professor Nigel Unwin, Co-Principal Investigator

Professor Nigel Unwin

Professor Unwin is an experienced public health professional and epidemiologist with a strong interest and track record in non-communicable diseases. He is highly experienced in working on, and leading, international public health research projects.

Much of his research has been, and continues to be, into the burden, prevention and control of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, including in low- and middle-income country settings.

He has worked with the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization (WHO), including two years with the Diabetes Group at WHO in Geneva. During his time at WHO he was part of the core writing team for ‘Chronic Diseases: A vital investment’. In 2006 he returned from WHO to Newcastle University as Professor in Epidemiology.

In August 2010 the exciting opportunity arose to contribute to establishing graduate programmes in Public Health at UWI, Cave Hill. He is currently Chair in Population Health Sciences at the Chronic Disease Research Centre, UWI.

Dr Madhuvanti Murphy: National policy responses: qualitative data collection and analysis

D Madhuvanti Murphy

Dr Madhuvanti (Maddy) Murphy is the Coordinator of Graduate Programmes in Public Health and a Lecturer in Public Health at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill. She holds an MPH from the University of Miami, and a Doctorate in Public Health (Sociomedical Sciences) from Columbia University in New York City. She is currently involved in teaching, research and curriculum development, and since joining the UWI faculty in 2011 has contributed to the development of the Master of Public Health Programme.

Dr Murphy is a past recipient of a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH/NIDA) pre-doctoral fellowship, and has been a co-investigator on more than 10 research grants, including two R01 grants funded by the NIH while an Assistant Professor at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Her expertise as a qualitative researcher has led her to publish and present on a wide range of public health issues, including adolescent drug use prevention, breast cancer and social determinants of non-communicable diseases. Since moving to Barbados, Dr Murphy has also co-founded and served on the Board of Charity Chicks Barbados, an organization which aims to make a positive impact on the local community through fundraising, volunteerism and awareness of current health-related issues.

Professor Emeritus Karl Theodore: Tobacco and alcohol taxation

Professor Emeritus Karl Theodore

Karl Theodore is the Director of the HEU, Centre for Health Economics at The University of the West Indies. As a professor of economics at the Department of Economics on the St. Augustine Campus, he taught Public Sector Economics and Fiscal Policy and Development as well as Health Economics. He has also supervised research in these areas for many years. His early work on taxation focused on the tax reform challenges of the Caribbean.

In shifting his focus to health Professor Theodore has concentrated on the efficiency of health systems and on the way these systems touch the lives of the ordinary people in these countries. He has led a multidisciplinary team of professionals in producing a number of technical reports for governments and international agencies and has also produced significant pieces of work on the operations of the health systems in different countries of the Caribbean region.

The HEU, Centre for Health Economics (formerly the Health Economics Unit) was founded in 1995 and continues to do extensive work on the costing and financing of health services in the region. Professor Theodore still leads a team of experts with extensive experience in National Health Insurance and Social Security and has co-authored research on fiscal space for the health sector as well as on the economic impact of HIV/AIDS and non-communicable diseases.

Professor W. Andy Knight: Regional policy responses to NCDs; international impact of Declaration

Professor Andrew Knight

W. Andy Knight is Professor of International Relations at the University of Alberta and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the highest honour afforded to Canadian academics. He was seconded to the post of Director of the Institute of International Relations, University of the West Indies, from January 2013 to December 2015.

Professor Knight serves as advisory board member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Welfare of Children and was Governor of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) from 2007 to 2012. He co-edited the Global Governance journal from 2000 to 2005 and was Vice Chair of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS).

Professor Knight has written and edited several books, book chapters and journal articles on various aspects of multilateralism, global governance and peace and United Nations reform. His recent books include: The Routledge Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect (with Frazer Egerton) –Routledge 2012; Towards the Dignity of Difference?: Neither ‘End of History’ nor ‘Clash of Civilizations’ (with Mojtaba Mahdavi) – Ashgate 2012; Global Politics (with Tom Keating) – Oxford University Press 2010. Female Suicide Bombing: A Critical Gender Approach (with Tanya Narozhna), published by University of Totonto Press, 2016; and Remapping the Americas: Trends in Region-Making (with Julián Castro-Rea and Hamid Ghany), published by Ashgate, 2014.

A much sought-after analyst, his work cuts across international relations, international law and global governance and is known for challenging the embedded orthodoxies of contemporary multilateralism.

Professor John Kirton: National and regional policy responses to NCDs; international impact of Declaration

Professor John Kirton

John J. Kirton is a professor of political science and the co-director of the Global Health Diplomacy Program, as well as the G20 Research Group and the BRICS Research Group, and director of the G7 Research Group, all based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at Trinity College at the University of Toronto. He is also a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies in Renmin University of China, co-author of The Global Governance of Climate Change (2015) and G20 Governance for a Globalized World (2013), and co-editor of Moving Health Sovereignty in Africa (2014)

For more information visit: http://individual.utoronto.ca/jkirton

Dr C. James Hospedales: Regional mortality and morbidity; dissemination

Dr James Hospedales

Dr C. James Hospedales, a citizen of Trinidad & Tobago, is the first Executive Director of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA). The Agency serves 24 countries, providing leadership in public health to support Caribbean states in their efforts to prevent disease and promote and protect the health of Caribbean people and visitors.

Dr Hospedales was previously Senior Advisor, Prevention & Control of Chronic Diseases at the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO). He was the innovator behind the Pan American Forum for Action on NCDs, which brings together the public and private sector and civil society to take joint action to prevent and control chronic diseases.

From 1998 to 2006, Dr. Hospedales was Director of the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC), where he played a key role in developing donor partnerships for HIV/AIDS prevention, and a partnership with the Caribbean tourism industry to improve health and environmental conditions. He was a member of the Caribbean Commission on Health and Development, which identified chronic diseases as a super-priority for the region.

Dr Hospedales graduated with honours in medicine from the University of the West Indies in 1980. He has an MSc from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health, and a graduate of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Epidemic Intelligence Service.

Sir Trevor Hassell: Dissemination

Professor Sir Trevor Hassell

Sir Trevor is President of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, Barbados Special Envoy for NCDs and Chair of both the Barbados National NCD Commission and the Advisory Committee of the Chronic Disease Research Centre, University of the West Indies.

For many years he has been a central figure in the Caribbean NCD response on a national and regional level, promoting the importance of multisectorality and a whole-of-society approach to prevention and control of NCDs. Sir Trevor is a recognised leader regionally and internationally in championing all aspects of civil society’s engagement in the prevention and control of NCDs and has been extensively involved in NCD policy making, healthy lifestyle programmes and interventions, and civil society capacity building and advocacy across the region.

Sir Trevor is presently a member of the Policy Advisor Group of the World Cancer Research Fund International, a member of the WHO/GCM Working Group on how to realise governments’ commitments to engage with the private sector for the prevention and control of NCDs, and was recently invited to be Co-Chair of PAHO/WHO Technical Advisory Group on cardiovascular disease prevention through population dietary salt reduction.

Sir Trevor was actively involved in the advent of the Port of Spain Declaration on NCDs and was a member of the Barbados delegation to the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs in 2011, as well as taking part in the 67th World Health Assembly in Geneva.

He is the Founder President of the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Barbados and is currently a member of its Board of Directors. He is a former Vice President of the World Heart Federation and a former President of the Inter-American Heart Foundation (2004-2006) and the Caribbean Cardiac Society.

In 2013 Sir Trevor was appointed to the Order of Barbados as a Knight of St. Andrew in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the medical profession.

Dr Godfrey C. Xuereb: Documenting tobacco control measures; studying successful implementation

Dr Xuereb

Dr Xuereb is a Maltese national and currently the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and World Health Organization (WHO) Representative for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Countries.

Having joined PAHO in 2001, as Public Health Nutritionist for the Caribbean (2001-2007), he was later appointed Team Leader for Population-based Prevention in the Department for Prevention of Non-communicable Diseases at WHO in Geneva (2007-2014).

During his first tenure in the Caribbean, Dr Xuereb was responsible for developing guidance for the nutritional management of persons living with HIV as well as the nutritional management of obesity and non-communicable disease prevention across the Caribbean. In Geneva he piloted the development of the WHO set of recommendations on marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children and led the publication of the first global recommendations on physical activity for health. He was also responsible for initiating WHO global work on population salt reduction and childhood obesity prevention.

Prior to joining WHO, Dr Xuereb served as an officer within the Maltese civil service with his final appointment being that of a/Director of Health Promotion and International Health within the Ministry of Health. His main achievement in Malta was the establishment of national clinical dietetics services which he ran from 1990-2001.

Dr Xuereb has a PhD in Public Health and also specialises in global health diplomacy having studied at the University of Malta, University of London (Kings College) and the University of the West Indies (Mona).

He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Malta, the UN Institute for Aging, the University of the West Indies (Mona) and the University of Technology (Jamaica). Dr Xuereb has presented at a number of international scientific fora and is the main author of a number of publications in peer reviewed journals as well as publications for patient education and continuing professional development of health care professionals. He has served as Vice-President and Secretary of the European Diabetes Education Study Group and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health (UK).