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Meet a rising champion for public health in the developing world

Twelve years of serving as a physician in his African homeland convinced Dr. Donald Yanogo that he needed to earn another degree—this time at FIU.

Already entrenched in the medical system of Burkina Faso, where he worked as an endocrinologist and a nutritionist, Yanogo did his homework and applied as a Fulbright scholar to Miami’s public research university, some 8,000 miles away. His country's record on communicable diseases—thousands of deaths occur annually from malaria and respiratory illnesses alone—served as a catalyst for leaving behind his young family and parents to pursue a master of public health at the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work .

“I knew that if I wanted to make a real impact in my country and this region, I needed to learn more about how to design and implement interventions that could bring about desirable changes at a large scale,” Yanogo says. At FIU he took signature courses that covered critical subjects such as community-level health needs assessment and health promotion.

Burkina Faso, with a population of roughly 21 million, is a developing country with more than 60 recognized ethnic groups. Many rural communities, which make up about 80 percent of the population, depend on river water, while luckier ones have access to communal wells. Formal education is scarce, and health education is even more inadequate.

Read the full story on FIU Magazine .