About Us

 

Overview

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Maintaining and improving brain health across the life course is one the greatest challenges of the 21st century, as few other issues will have a similar level of effect on human longevity. A promising approach to mitigate the complex threats to brain health at an individual, community, national, and international level is Brain Health Diplomacy (BHD).

BHD is a pioneering approach to bridge disciplinary and geographic boundaries and mobilize resources to promote equitable brain health outcomes across regions. This approach aims to improve brain performance on a global scale including through formal commitments to support brain health and aims to mitigate the complex threats to brain health at an individual, community, national, and international level through large-scale diplomacy.

Journey to date

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Photo taken by Alex Kornhuber

In collaboration with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Brain Health Diplomacy Working Group (Dawson and Booi, Co-Leads), we convened a steering committee comprised of a multinational, multidisciplinary group of experts from neuroscience, health policy, medicine, and diplomacy who launched a brain health diplomacy agenda to support the global challenge of brain health.

Support from the Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat) allowed our team to build and test the Brain Health Diplomat’s Toolkit for Latin America and the Caribbean Region. The Toolkit is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and offers a practical guide for brain health professionals and other allied disciplines, in particular future leaders in the early stages of their careers, to support collaboration across disciplines, sectors, and national borders to build greater equity in brain health.

Brain Health Diplomacy Team Leaders

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Dr Laura Booi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Dementia Research at Leeds Beckett University and a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health with the Global Brain Health Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Dr Walter Dawson is an Assistant Professor at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine’s Layton Aging & Alzheimer’s Disease Center and faculty at Portland State University’s Institute on Aging. He is also a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health with the Global Brain Health Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Dr Harris Eyre is a physician, neuroscientist, entrepreneur and author. He is focused on advancing the field of brain capital. He is a Fellow of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and a Senior Fellow with the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, the Lead for the Brain Capital Alliance and Co-lead for the OECD Neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative.

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Dr Agustin Ibanez is a neuroscientist interested in global approaches to dementia and social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience. He is the Director of Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat) at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI). He is also an Associate Professor at the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) at the Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Funders & Partners

The Brain Health Diplomacy leaders would like to give a special thank you to the Global Brain Health Institute, both for funding this website through there generous support of a Collaboration Grant (led by Dr Laura Booi) and their promotion of the ideals of Brain Health Diplomacy.