In partnership with Santé publique France, the Collège de France is establishing a new chair dedicated to public health
Established in partnership with Santé publique France, the Collège de France’s Chair in Public Health is designed to promote excellence in research and intellectual debate at the highest level on public health issues. Professor Arnaud Fontanet has been invited by the Assembly of the Collège de France to hold this chair for one year.
In his lecture series at the Collège de France, titled "Epidemiology, or the Science of Risk Assessment in Public Health," Professor Arnaud Fontanet will demonstrate that epidemiology, through its history and the challenges it faces, remains a demanding discipline capable of evolving to continually refine our understanding of the causes of disease, particularly new pandemics, which are estimated to emerge every five years. Drawing on his research, he will attempt to answer several questions. What are the levels of evidence and causality in epidemiology? Should we still fear pandemics? What are the concrete contributions of this discipline to human health? He will then devote several sessions to the cases that have occupied him throughout his career and in which he is one of the leading experts: hepatitis C in Egypt; the Zika virus and its vector, Aedes aegypti; and SARS and MERS from a global health perspective.
His inaugural lecture will take place on Thursday, January 31, at 6:00 p.m., and his courses will begin on February 4. These lectures are open to everyone without prior registration and will be posted online and streamed as they become available on the Collège de France website.
See the press kit
Biography |
Arnaud Fontanet, a specialist in the epidemiology of emerging diseases, is a professor at the Institut Pasteur and the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. A former resident at Paris hospitals, he holds a doctorate in medicine (University of Paris V) and in public health (Harvard University), and specializes in the epidemiology of infectious and tropical diseases. After completing his doctoral thesis on the efficacy of mefloquine in the treatment of malaria on the Thailand-Cambodia border, he led an AIDS research program in Ethiopia for five years. Since January 2002, he has headed the Emerging Diseases Epidemiology Unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. His main research areas are viral hepatitis and emerging viruses. Arnaud Fontanet is also Director of the Pasteur-CNAM School of Public Health and Director of the Global Health Center at the Pasteur Institute. |
About the Collège de France:
The Collège de France is a major public institution of higher education and research. A unique institution in France and without parallel abroad, it serves a dual purpose: to be both a center for the most daring research and a venue for its teaching. Education is open to all and free of charge. The vast majority of the courses and seminars offered there are freely accessible online.
Dedicated to fundamental research, the Collège de France has a distinctive feature: its professors share their research with the public; free research and living knowledge, across all fields of the humanities, sciences, and arts. The chairs—and consequently the disciplines taught—are constantly renewed in line with the evolution of knowledge. The Collège de France also hosts numerous research teams in its laboratories and among its professors.
Learn more:
Collège de France, Prof. Arnaud Fontanet, visiting professor - Chair of Public Health (1'22) - SARS, a model of an emerging disease - Les CourTs du Collège de France (with French subtitles). [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUNAW75dbv8. [Accessed: Jan. 28, 2019]
Collège de France, Prof. Arnaud Fontanet, visiting professor - Chair of Public Health (1'41) - Introduction to Epidemiology - Les CourTs du Collège de France (French subtitles). [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6JCq8Bne44. [Accessed: Jan. 28, 2019]
