Collins O. Airhihenbuwa PhD. MPH

Collins O. Airhihenbuwa PhD, MPH, is Professor and Dean of the College for Public Health and Social Justice, Saint Louis University (SLU), Saint Louis, Missouri. He is also the Director of the Global Health Institute at SLU. He is a global expert on health behavior a pioneer in centralizing culture in health behaviors. He has led research collaborations, institutional partnerships, and mentoring of faculty and professional staff at various institutions globally. As the author of PEN-3 model his work has informed and help to advance ways of addressing the intersection of culture, identity, and health globally. He is a consultant to several UN agencies including WHO, UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNFPA. He led one of the earlier WHO efforts to galvanize multi-disciplinary efforts to address HIV and AIDS in Africa. He is the lead author of the Communications Framework for HIV and AIDS (the UNAIDS Communications Framework for HIV/AIDS: A New Direction, 2000);sponsored by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) involving 103 researchers and practitioners from 5 continents with the final report translated into French, Spanish and KiSwahili. He has authored over 120 articles and book chapters. Books include Health and Culture: Beyond the Western Paradigm (1995);Healing Our Differences: the Crisis of Global Health and the Politics of Identity (2007);and Ethnicity: Theories, International Perspectives and Challenges (2013) co-editor (with Agyemang and de-Graft). He chairs the Advisory Board of the Global Philanthropy Alliance which funds projects in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. He has been a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a former President and Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Public Health Education. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Health Behavior and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. Until last year, he was Professor and Head, Department of Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Pan University Network for Global Health.