Scholarship program targets heart health in the developing world

A program to promote heart health in the developing world will bring health practitioners to Harvard and support a professor to teach prevention of cardiovascular disease.

The Bernard Lown Fund in Cardiovascular Health at the Harvard School of Public Health will train mid-career doctors, nurses, scientists, and other health professionals from the developing world in public health strategies. The Lown scholars will be students in the masters of public health or other degree programs and also do some clinical work during their stays in Boston.

The $12 million fund and the program are named after Dr. Bernard Lown, developer of the first clinically accepted cardiac defibrillator and Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work as co-founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. In addition to the Lown scholars and the Lown professorship, the fund will also support international conferences on prevention of cardiovascular disease.

"We are in the midst of a huge global tsunami of cardiovascular disease in the developing world," Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation, said in an interview. "Everyone talks about infectious diseases like malaria and AIDS, but we are now unfortunately reaching a stage where heart attacks and strokes are going to take over. In Dr. Lown's view, if we are all going to live in peace, we ought to be doing more to help people in the developing world cope."