Olga Sarmiento, MD

Conversations on Urban Health - Dr Yonette Thomas

Dr. Olga Lucia Sarmiento Dueñas is a member of the ISUH Board. She is a member of the Latin American Urban Health Network and is a member of the executive committee in that network. The LAC Network consists of people and researchers who live in Latin America as well as researchers in the U.S. who work on Latin American issues. She is a physician epidemiologist and analyses community interventions in Latin American that can have influence on the prevention of chronic diseases. Her work as an urban-health-influencer presents many opportunities for collaboration within ISUH. For example, her work with the Open-Streets Project. The Open-Streets Project focuses on social inclusion, social capital, inequalities, and community interventions and health. Dr. Sarmiento Duenas sees ISUH as truly multidisciplinary and truly global and works from a perspective that shows that health is more than the health care system. To have healthy cities we need to see how other sectors can teach us how to improve the health in our cities. She is anxious to learn from other continents – e.g. the relationship between South America and other continents. Her vision for ISUH is a focus on capacity building for the new generation of academics who want to be part urban health work. Some of the ways that can help this new generation could be done through mentorship, connecting with other early career urban health thinkers, webinars, exchange opportunities, and helping build new programs in countries that have less capacity. Webinars blended within existing programs can generate interests – e.g., an ISUH webinar in one of her public health courses blended within an existing program to optimize resources.