How Academics Can Change The World

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a $105 million grant to create the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The institute will be run by Chris Murray, a Harvard professor and global health leader who's been recruited for the job. The institute will evaluate international health programs and spending, and it will offer a master's degree program for 25 to 40 students.

The new institute has a web site: www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org

The institute was to have been at Harvard, but software mogul Larry Ellison last year rescinded a promised gift of $115 million, citing leadership concerns after the departure of former Harvard President Lawrence Summers.

One key measure that Murray developed — called Disability Affected Life Years, or DALY — was derided by public-health leaders at the time, who accused him of making unethical judgments and comparisons about disease and suffering.

One of Murray's colleagues said one person who took a shine to the work was Bill Gates, who began carrying the pair's summary book with him everywhere. Whenever someone would ask him for money, Gates would quiz them about their "burden of disease" measurement.

Eventually, the wider public-health community — and the World Health Organization — also came to embrace the measure, now seen as an important yardstick in health-care accountability.

Colleagues of Murray describe him as hard-working, focused and possessing an uncanny ability to unearth meaning from obscure data.

In an e-mail, Harvard School of Public Health Dean Barry Bloom said Murray is "one of those rare academics who've really changed the world."

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