Dr. Hopkins was awarded the honorary degree along with eight other luminaries, including Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and television personality Oprah Winfrey.

A graduate of Harvard’s School of Public Health, Dr. Hopkins previously was recognized by the university with an Alumni Award of Merit in 2012.

After a successful career at the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, Dr. Hopkins retired from acting director at the CDC to a second career at The Carter Center. For 25 years, he has overseen the Center’s pioneering work on the eradication, elimination, and control of neglected tropical diseases as well as the promotion of mental health.

Dr. Hopkins also is chair of the Carter Center’s International Task Force for Disease Eradication, which includes scientists and notable international health organizations from around the world who evaluate disease control and prevention and the potential for eradicating infectious diseases.

“Everyone, even those living thousands of miles away from a Guinea worm endemic village, should care about this disease because Guinea worm disease impedes human potential around the globe,” said Dr. Hopkins. “Mozart almost died of smallpox as a child. How much poorer would the world be if Nelson Mandela had died of measles as a boy? The world is losing potential scientists, statesmen, and artists every day to preventable diseases.”

On May 30, 2013, Harvard University presented Carter Center Vice President of Health Programs Dr. Donald Hopkins with an honorary Doctor of Science degree for his leadership in disease eradication, particularly his work on the Center’s campaign to wipe out the water borne affliction Guinea worm disease.

A graduate of Harvard’s School of Public Health, Dr. Hopkins was awarded the honorary degree along with eight other luminaries, including Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and television personality Oprah Winfrey.

Learn more about the Carter Center’s health programs >

Read Harvard Magazine’s write up of the honorees >

Read the 2013 New York Times’ profile of Dr. Hopkins, “Another Scourge in His Sights” >

Rebecca Palpant Shimkets, assistant director in the Carter Center’s Mental Health Program, describes the stigma facing people with mental illnesses and how the Carter Center’s activities aim to help. (Photo: Carter Center/D. Hakes)

How do stigma and discrimination affect people with mental illnesses?
Members of the general public often only encounter mental illnesses in their extreme forms, such as through sensa-tionalist news stories or by seeing severely ill homeless people. Unfortunately, there just isn’t a lot of education out there about mental illnesses, what causes these disorders, and how they can be treated. As a result, many people who suffer from mental illnesses are afraid that if they seek medical help, they will be ostracized by their communities. The ramifications of untreated mental illness go beyond unnecessary suffering to include potentially life-threatening and preventable health risks like suicide.

In addition, stigma and misinformation breed the more serious problem of people facing discrimination when seeking jobs, housing, or transportation. On a larger scale, public funding, services, and supports often are considerably less available or robust than other kinds of medical care, even though mental illnesses affect one in four Americans each year.

The Carter Center’s mental health policy symposium last November focused on moving beyond just fighting stigma to creating opportunities to improve the way society includes and supports people with mental illness.

Has the stigma of mental illnesses lessened in recent years?
In some ways, we have made some progress. Recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that more Americans are aware of mental health treatments and believe that they work. Additionally, more people are openly discussing their experiences with mental illnesses, especially depression and anxiety disorders. But there is more to do.

What role do the media play in shaping public perceptions?
Journalists play an important role in shaping how the public understands these issues. Reporters make a commitment to fair and accurate reporting, but in reality many of them do not have the resources and training to cover mental health in a balanced and sensitive way.

The Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism are given to 10 professional journalists in the United States, Romania, and most recently Colombia, who use the stipends to investigate a wide range of mental health is-sues, producing articles, books, and documentaries. Because fellows are in the position of gaining public attention and awareness, we have seen positive change and government attention to important public health issues. Read Meet Nicolae Ciorogan: From Different Homelands, Finding Common Ground on Mental Health >

In the poorest places in the world, an eye disease called trachoma is robbing women of their dignity, their hope for the future, and even their ability to ensure the survival of their children.

“Trachoma” sounds like a remote or obscure disease, but this bacterial infection used to exist throughout the world, including in the United States and in my own native Great Britain.

Only a few decades ago, wealthy nations wiped out the disease through improvements in access to medical care and sanitation.

Yet, trachoma lingers in the most neglected countries on earth, with more than 320 million people remaining at risk. It has been estimated that the economic cost of trachoma could be as high as U.S. $4 billion to 6 billion, an unimaginable sum to communities who live on less than two dollars a day.

The human toll of trachoma, however, is incalculable.

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Dr. Donald R. Hopkins in Nasarawa, Nigeria, with children beside a river infected with schistosomiasis. (Carter Center Photo: L. Gubb)

Omaha, NE — Legendary eradication expert Dr. Donald R. Hopkins received the prestigious Pumphandle Award June 3 from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), honoring his outstanding contributions to applied epidemiology.

“Donald Hopkins is renowned as an eradication expert, and his unwavering commitment to improving the lives of the world’s most disadvantaged people using a data-driven approach is unparalleled. This award recognizes his contributions to public health and epidemiology and the high esteem in which he is held by his colleagues,” CSTE President-elect Laurene Mascola, M.D., M.P.H. said. “We are pleased to award him CSTE’s highest honor.”The Pumphandle Award was given to Dr. Hopkins during the opening plenary of the CSTE Annual Conference. For more than four decades Dr. Hopkins has focused on eradicating smallpox and Guinea worm disease as well as battling a host of other diseases that impact the world’s most impoverished communities. Under his leadership, Guinea worm cases have been reduced by more than 99.9% worldwide from approximately 3.5 million cases in 1986 to less than 1,000 today.

The Pumphandle Award is the most prestigious award for applied epidemiology in the country. It commemorates the actions of Dr. John Snow, a 19^th century physician and the “Father of Applied Epidemiology” who ended a cholera epidemic in London by removing the pump handle from a contaminated well. CSTE Executive Director Patrick McConnon said, “Dr. Hopkins’ extraordinary leadership during the arduous campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease makes him the ideal recipient of the 2012 Pumphandle Award.”

Dr. Hopkins is The Carter Center’s Vice President for Health Programs and the chair of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, housed at The Carter Center, helping identify potentially eradicable diseases. After heading the successful Smallpox Eradication/Measles Control Program in Sierra Leone early in his career, Dr. Hopkins was an assistant professor of tropical public health at the Harvard School of Public Health. From there he went on to serve as both Deputy Director (1984-1987) and Acting Director (1985) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention capping a distinguished career at the CDC.

CSTE is an organization of member states and territories and represents the perspective of epidemiologists working in state and local government. It is also a professional association of over 1,000 public health epidemiologists working in federal, state, local, and tribal health agencies, and U.S. territories. CSTE works to establish more effective working relationships among state and federal agencies and with other public health agencies. It also provides technical advice and assistance to partner organizations and to federal public health agencies such as CDC.

Read the official press release >

Nicole Kruse talks to students at Summerour Middle School in Norcross, Ga., on Oct. 28.

Center staff will speak to Atlanta-area high schools about the global peace and health efforts of The Carter Center, particularly in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.  They include Nicole Kruse, chief  development officer (health), Office of Institutional Development; Chansi Powell, program associate, Democracy Program; Hrair Balian, director, Conflict Resolution Program; Shandal Sullivan, executive administrative assistant to Dr. Don Hopkins, Health Programs; Colette Le Jeune, program assistant (peace), Office of Institutional Development;  Erin Crysler, program associate, Human Rights Program;  and Samantha Young, intern, Liberia Mental Health Project.

Chansi Powell briefs the Model United Nations AIS Club at Atlanta International School on the Carter Center’s global initiatives Nov. 1.

The goal of the conference, under the theme “France Atlanta:  Together Towards Innovation,” is to further strengthen the ties between France and the Southeast United States.  The Ambassador of France to the United States, Mr. Francois Delattre; Georgia Governor Nathan Deal; and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed have endorsed the event.

Samantha Young discusses the Center’s Liberia mental health project with students at North Atlanta High School on Nov. 1.

The 2011 program includes four scientific symposia, two economic workshops, five cultural events, and two humanitarian events, including the Carter Center component.

For more information about “France-Atlanta 2011,” visit the website:  www.france-atlanta.org.

“The idea came out of a speech that President Carter gave to the Parliament of World Religions in 2009 where he challenged people of faith and religious leaders to step up and to stand for women’s rights,” said Karin Ryan, director of the Carter Center’s Human Rights Program. “We hope to create a dialogue among groups who believe that human dignity is a key precept.”

The formal conference on April 5-6 will be webcast live on the Carter Center’s website at www.cartercenter.org, and select portions will be live tweeted by Carter Center staff. Follow our twitter feed @CarterCenter and join in the discussion at #WomenandRights11.

Listen to Karin Ryan discuss the importance of the forum and its vital support to human rights defenders, who often risk their own well-being in their own countries.

Click image below to watch video.

The compendium and database of obligations for democratic elections, a result of years of research, was launched this week on the Carter Center’s website.

In their article, “Using International Law to Assess Elections,” Davis-Roberts and Carroll argue that the use of international human rights law is an important means of not only promoting democratic elections, but also more objective election observation.  When using international human rights law–as well as the domestic laws of the country being observed–to assess elections, observers are essentially trying to determine the degree to which fundamental rights and freedoms (such as the right to vote, or freedom of assembly) are fulfilled.

In 2006, The Carter Center embarked on a multi-year initiative aimed at building consensus on standards for democratic elections based on obligations in Public International Law – the Democratic Election Standards (DES) project.  The DES project builds on the success of the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation and draws on past work on election standards and assessment criteria by other leading organizations.  This initiative has been funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Irish Aid Civil Society Fund.

Click here to read a  pre-printed version of “Using International Law to Assess Elections” (Democratization vol.3, 2010).

The final and definitive version can be purchased and read at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a922099370~frm=titlelink)

Watch Carter Center observers in Sudan as Sarah Johnson, assistant director of the Democracy Program, explains the significance of these elections and importance of having an observer presence.

Click image below to watch video.

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Watch the video:  David Pottie, associate director of the Carter Center’s Democracy Program, explains the significance of Cote d’Ivoire’s elections.

The Carter Center established its election observation mission to Côte d’Ivoire in November 2008 and remains engaged there to shed light on the protracted conflict so that it is not overlooked, or worse, rolled back into open conflict, and to encourage the national reconciliation needed to fulfill the promise of a democratic peace.

The immediate challenges facing Cote d’Ivoire are to rebuild political trust among political parties and confidence in the electoral institutions if the country is to get back on track for holding the long-delayed elections. As in the rest of West Africa, events in one country can hold promise, or disaster, for its neighbors, such as Liberia and Sierra Leone, who both experienced devastating recent civil wars.

The speakers are part of the Friends of the Democratic Charter, a group of former presidents, prime ministers, and Cabinet ministers from the Western Hemisphere who seek to increase the visibility of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and to prevent democratic tensions from erupting into crises. The Friends visit countries to assess democratic tensions, encourage citizens and governments to make use of international resources to defend their democracies and resolve constitutional conflicts, and recommend ways for the OAS to apply the charter in a constructive and preventative manner. The Carter Center serves as secretariat for the Friends.

The GSU event is free and open to the public, and takes place from 3-7 p.m. at GSU’s Rialto theater. For more information, Georgia State University public forum flyer (PDF).

Listen to Jennifer McCoy discuss the significance of the GSU event.

Click image below to watch video.