National School of Tropical Medicine Public Policy

Public policy and advocacy represent a key fourth component of the mission of the Baylor College of Medicine National School of Tropical Medicine. NSTM and its faculty have a distinguished track record of raising awareness about the importance of neglected tropical diseases both overseas and within the United States and have organized high profile conferences and panels, as well as helped to formulate public policy on Capitol Hill, in the UK Parliament, and in the Texas State Legislature. NSTM collaborates with key public policy organizations in Houston and in Texas including the Baylor Healthcare Policy Institute, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, and The Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas.

Neglected Disease Advocacy

NSTM faculty advocate increased awareness, education, and allocation of resources to fight neglected tropical diseases, neglected infections of poverty, and emerging infectious diseases and effect their reduction, elimination, and eradication. View related publications:

Vaccine Hesitancy and Anti-Science in Texas and the United States

Led by Dr. Hotez, NSTM faculty advocate increased education around vaccines and communication of science in the United States and here in Texas. View related publications and media coverage:

Science Diplomacy

NSTM leaders advocate cooperation among scientific communities from other countries, including those countries with whom the U.S. does not have entirely good relations, in order to maximize scientific efforts through cooperation. Among other projects NSTM partners with University of Malaya and the government of Botswana for capacity building and training in the area of vaccine development. View related publications:

Emerging Infectious Diseases

NSTM Faculty are authorities on disease outbreaks including Chikungunya, , West Nile, yellow fever, and others, and are important sources of information in the scientific community as well as to local, national, and global audiences regarding new and emerging infectious diseases.

Open Access

NSTM advocates the open-access model of scholarly publishing to facilitate scientific discovery. Faculty make an effort to have their scholarly research published through open access; in addition, Dr. Hotez is editor-in-chief of Public Library of Science NTDs, the first open-access journal dedicated to neglected tropical diseases.