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Robert  Breiman

Professor

Faculty, Global Health

Secondary Appointment, Environmental Health

Dr. Robert F. Breiman is Professor of Global Health, Environmental Health, and Infectious Diseases at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health and School of Medicine.  Dr Breiman's primary areas of research have been related to addressing inequities with focus on child mortality, urbanization in impoverished settings, and a range of respiratory and enteric diseases, as well as a variety of emerging infectious diseases. In addition to his research, he is currently working on translating global health work to increase public awareness and engagement. He is PI of the CDC-funded project on SARS-CoV vaccine messaging, called COVID Vaccines Information Equity and Demand creation (COVIED) with partners at Emory, Johns Hopkins University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia College--Rural Studies Institute, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), the Black Cross and Riwi.   He is co-PI of the NIH-funded Centers for Research on Emerging Infectious Diseases in East and Central Africa (CREID-ECA) in collaboration with Washington State University, RTI, KEMRI and others.   He is PI of a new grant funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support Typhoid Fever burden of disease studies and policies, working with WHO, IVI, Sabin Vaccine Institute, Christian Medical College in Vellore.   

Until 2020, he was the Executive Director and Principal Investigator for the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) network and the Director of the Emory Global Health Institute. CHAMPS, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), is designed to characterize and provide crucial data for preventing childhood mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia; it currently works in S Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh and India.  He has also been PI of BMGF and Gavi-funded projects focused on typhoid surveillance, rotavirus immunization impact, and characterizing the evolution of pneumococcal genetics globally during the era of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine use.  Before joining Emory in 2013, Dr. Breiman worked at CDC for 26 years.  From 2004-2013, he was based in Nairobi, Kenya as the Director of CDC-Kenya’s Global Disease Detection Division, and for three years as overall Director of CDC-Kenya.  Breiman was Head, of the Programme on Infectious Diseases and Vaccine Sciences at the internationally acclaimed International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) from 2000-2004. He was Director of the United States National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO)  from 1995-2000 and was the Chief of the Epidemiology Section of the Respiratory Diseases Branch (RDB) from 1989-1997.  He served in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at CDC from 1987-1989 in RDB.  Dr Breiman was elected into the National Academy of Medicine in 2017 and is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH).

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Contact Information

, GA

Phone: 4047273788

Email: rfbreiman@emory.edu

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Areas of Interest

  • Diarrheal and Enteric Diseases
  • Global Health
  • Infectious Disease
  • Infectious Disease Dynamics
  • Maternal and Child Health
  • Urban Health
  • Vaccines

Education

  • MD 1979, University of Arizona
  • Infectious Diseases 1987, UCLA
  • EIS 1989, CDC

Affiliations & Activities

National Academy of Medicine (Elected to membership, 2017)

American Epidemiological Society (Elected to Membership 2008)

Fellow, Infectious Diseases Society of America (FIDSA)

Fellow, American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (FASTMH)

Phi Beta Kappa

Phi Kappa Phi

 

Other Roles

Chair, WHO Committee on Typhoid Burden of Disease (2020-present)

Member, Emory University Research Advisory Board (2018-2020)

Member, Woodruff Health Sciences Research Advisory Committee (2018-), Emory University

Chairman, WHO committee on enteric burden of diseases (2018- )—first meeting in Cape Town, S Africa, November 2018

Chairman, Immunizations and Vaccine-related Implementation Research Advisory Committee (IVIR-AC) to WHO-Geneva (2012-2018) Immunizations, Vaccines and Biologics Division.

Chair, Scientific Advisory Panel for Optimal Research on Typhoid disease burden (supported by BMGF for $2.5 million through 2018)

 

Publications

  • , , Reflections On Governance, Communication, And Equity: Challenges And Opportunities In COVID-19 Vaccination. , Health Aff (Millwood), 40,
  • , , Effect of Delays in Maternal Access to Healthcare on Neonatal Mortality in Sierra Leone: A Social Autopsy Case-Control Study at a Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) Site, Matern Child Health J, ,
  • , , A New Pneumococcal Capsule Type, 10D, Is the 100th Serotype and Has a Large cps Fragment From an Oral Streptococcus. , mBio, 11,
  • , , Initial Findings From a Novel Population-Based Child Mortality Surveillance Approach: A Descriptive Study. , Lancet Global Health, 8, 909-918
  • , , Rotavirus group A genotype circulation patterns across Kenya before and after nationwide vaccine introduction, 2010-2018. , BMC Infectious Diseases, 20,
  • , , Global Pneumococcal Sequencing Consortium. Pneumococcal lineages associated with serotype replacement and antibiotic resistance in childhood invasive pneumococcal disease in the post-PCV13 era: an international whole-genome sequencing study, Lancet Infectious Diseases, ,
  • , , Global Pneumococcal Sequencing Consortium. International genomic definition of pneumococcal lineages, to contextualise disease, antibiotic resistance and vaccine impact, EBioMedicine, ,
  • , , Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems Within the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance Network, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 69, S274-S279
  • , , Illuminating Child Mortality: Discovering Why Children Die, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 69, S257-259
  • , , Impact of 10-valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine Introduction on Pneumococcal Carriage and Antibiotic Susceptibility Patterns among Children aged <5 Years and Adults with HIV Infection, Kenya 2009-2013, Clinical Infectious Diseases, ,
  • , , Impact of the introduction of rotavirus vaccine on hospital admissions for diarrhoea among children in Kenya: A controlled interrupted time series analysis, Clinical Infectious Diseases, ,
  • , , Mortality Surveillance Methods to Identify and Characterize Deaths in Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance Network Sites., Clinical Infectious Diseases, 69, S672-S673
  • , , Overview and Development of the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance Determination of Cause of Death (DeCoDe) Process and DeCoDe Diagnosis Standards. , Clinical Infectious Diseases, 69, S333-S341
  • , , The Severe Typhoid Fever in Africa Program: Study Design and Methodology to Assess Disease Severity, Host Immunity, and Carriage Associated With Invasive Salmonellosis., Clinical Infectious Diseases, 69 (Supplement 6), S422-434
  • , , Diarrhoea, enteric pathogen detection and nutritional indicators among controls in the Global Enteric Multicenter Study, Kenya site: an opportunity to understand reference populations in case-control studies of diarrhoea, Epidemiology and Infections, ,
  • , , Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Characteristics among HIV-Positive Households Participating in the Global Enterics Multicenter Study in Rural Western Kenya, 2008-2012., American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, ,
  • , , Animal-related factors associated with moderate-to-severe diarrhea in children younger than five years in western Kenya: A matched case-control study, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, ,
  • , , Pneumococcal carriage and antibiotic susceptibility patterns from two cross-sectional colonization surveys among children aged <5 years prior to the introduction of 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine - Kenya, 2009-2010, BMC Infectious Diseases, ,
  • , , Epidemiology, Seasonality and Factors Associated with Rotavirus Infection among Children with Moderate-to-Severe Diarrhea in Rural Western Kenya, 2008-2012: The Global Enteric Multicenter Study (GEMS), PLoS One, ,
  • , , Malaria Parasitemia among Febrile Patients Seeking Clinical Care at an Outpatient Health Facility in an Urban Informal Settlement Area in Nairobi, Kenya, Ameriacn Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, ,
  • , , Uptake and Effectiveness of a Trivalent Inactivated Influenza Vaccine in Children in Urban and Rural Kenya, 2010-2012, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal, ,
  • , , Increased Rates of Respiratory and Diarrheal Illnesses in HIV-Negative Persons Living With HIV-Infected Individuals in a Densely Populated Urban Slum in Kenya, Journal of Infectious Diseases, ,
  • , , Severe acute respiratory infection in children in a densely populated urban slum in Kenya, 2007-2011, BMC Infectious Diseases, ,
  • , , Mortality trends observed in population-based surveillance of an urban slum settlement, Kibera, Kenya, 2007-2010, PLoS One, ,
  • , , Sustained high incidence of injuries from burns in a densely populated urban slum in Kenya: An emerging public health priorit, Burns, ,
  • , , Use of Population-based Surveillance to Determine the Incidence of Rotavirus Gastroenteritis in an Urban Slum and a Rural Setting in Kenya, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal, ,
  • , , Epidemiology of respiratory syncytial virus infection in rural and urban Kenya. , J Infect Dis, ,
  • , , Urban Leptospirosis in Africa: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Leptospira Infection in Rodents in the Kibera Urban Settlement, Nairobi, Kenya. , Am J Trop Med Hyg, ,