While healthcare is focused on the care and treatment of individual patients one at a time, public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of an entire community by studying the distribution and determinants of diseases, risk factors, and injuries to help influence policy.

As a faculty member in the Manning College of Nursing & Health Sciences (MCNHS) and a biostatistician by training, Phil Gona, professor of urban public health, develops and applies innovative statistical methods and collaborates with multidisciplinary teams of health scientists. Together, they address scientific questions focused on improving health for communities, preventing disease, and informing health policy.

“My specialty in statistical methodology includes meticulously developing risk prediction models, which are a unique class of mathematical equations. The equations are useful for predicting, based on an individual’s characteristics and current health status, their likelihood of developing a particular disease in the future. I develop these equations using methods grounded in survival analysis or event history analysis of longitudinal follow-up study designs,” said Gona, a 2024 Fulbright Specialist at North-West University’s (NWU) Hypertension in Africa Research Team (HART) in Potchefstroom, South Africa.

For his summer 2024 project at NWU, titled “Enhancement of Statistical and Epidemiological Excellence for Research in Hypertension in Africa,” Gona collaborated with scientists to conduct a 30-year descriptive epidemiological analysis of data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study.

Gona and his colleagues at NWU assessed the changes and trajectories in the burden of hypertension and hypertensive heart diseases together with the burden of associated risk factors in South Africa, where these conditions are very prominent compared to other regions of the world.”

Hypertensive heart disease is a progressive disease caused by prolonged elevated blood pressure and can rapidly progress to heart failure causing substantial disease burden and cardiovascular death. The GBD study, in which Gona is a Principal Collaborator, is the largest and most comprehensive effort to quantify health loss across places and over time, so health systems, and therefore population health, can be improved and lives saved. Future plans include conducting similar epidemiological analyses focused on diabetes, kidney dysfunction, and HIV/AIDS for South Africa.

A fellow of the American Heart Association, Gona was invited to present his team’s work at the regional conference of the International Society of Hypertension in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“The Fulbright opportunity has truly provided me an opportunity to strengthen scientific collaboration with other population health scientists abroad. The relationships that I have built through teaching, mentoring, and capacity building are robust and have the potential to benefit my students at UMass Boston as well as faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students at NWU.”

Dr. Lebo Gafane-Matemane, an associate professor of cardiovascular physiology at HART said, “I benefited immensely through working side by side with Professor Gona during his two Fulbright visits to NWU. I am excited about the plan of action to continue to analyze and publish data for South Africa from the GBD study. I am even more delighted that we were able to present part of our work on hypertensive heart diseases at the Southern African Hypertension Society Conference.”

“Professor Gona’s work and presence on the global health stage as a Fulbright Scholar makes us proud and has been a wonderful opportunity to introduce UMass Boston’s new Urban Public Health Department to a broad audience,” said MCNHS Dean Bo Fernhall.