Dr. Nabel: The NHLBI's Strategic Plan

Several years ago, the NHLBI developed a strategic plan to guide its scientific activities over the next decade. As part of that strategic plan, we defined our vision as the NHLBI providing global leadership in research, education and training for heart, lung and blood diseases. That means that we have a role and a responsibility to support research and training in the chronic diseases worldwide, in order to prevent them, to accurately diagnose, recognize them, and to better treat them to reduce the amount of illness and the burden of that illness on the global community.

The NHLBI is building on its growing body of global work in chronic diseases, and expanding its collaboration in research and knowledge-sharing. Working together, the scientific collaborators will design studies that capitalize on cultural differences in risk factors and health practices, which then can advance discoveries in heart disease, cancer and lung disease much more effectively.

Five years from now, I would hope that the NHLBI Global Health Initiative will have the following impact. First, that we will develop a collaborative network of programs worldwide, on every continent on the globe, working together to share common knowledge and training experiences, to really develop effective programs to prevent and treat the chronic diseases. Second, I hope that the NHLBI Global Health Initiative will raise awareness among Americans about the importance of our role in the world, with respect to medical diplomacy. That is, we can achieve peaceful efforts around the world, through sharing our medical knowledge and our medical expertise with our neighbors on a global scale. And finally, I hope that individuals in this country have an opportunity to partner, make friends, and form collegial relationship with medical and health care providers in countries throughout the world, so that the network of these collaborating centers can blossom and really develop the next generation of global health leaders worldwide.