Robert Wm. Blum

Robert Blum William H. Gates, Sr. Chair, Department of Population, Family & Reproductive Health.

"Dr. Blum joined the faculty of the School of Public Health from the University of Minnesota, where he is the outgoing director of the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health and director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Collaborating Center in Adolescent Health. Dr. Blum’s research interests include adolescent sexuality, chronic illness, and international adolescent health care issues.

"In 1978, he founded the adolescent health program at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Blum was also co-investigator for the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health, the largest survey of American youth ever undertaken. Recently, he published a study in the American Journal of Public Health debunking the myths that race, income, and family structure can be major predictors of youth health risk behaviors.

"For many years, Dr. Blum has served as a U.S. representative to the WHO. He has also served as a consultant to the Pan American Health Organization, World Bank, and UNICEF. He has been chair of the Alan Guttmacher Institute Board of Directors and was president of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. He also chaired the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Adolescent Health and Development from 2001 to 2005.

"In May 2006, Dr. Blum was named the interim Director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. Dr. Blum was elected into the Institute of Medicine in 2006."


 * Director, teenpregnancy.org