WASHINGTON, DC – Dr. Goulda Downer, a Jamaican-born Howard University assistant professor of medicine, is the recipient of the 2013 Congressional Black Caucus Health Brain Trust Leadership in Advocacy Award. Dr. Downer is also the recipient of the 2013 Health Care Leadership Award, from the Washington Metropolitan Area Chapter of the National Association of Health Services Executives.
Her stellar work helping to strengthen the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) clinical workforce across the USA earned Dr. Downer the two prestigious awards. Her efforts have been instrumental in educating and training more than 46,000 clinicians and care providers to deliver culturally competent, quality HIV care. Her work has also been credited with helping to stem the tide of Human Immunodeficiency Virus /Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) within the US.
More specifically, the Health Care Leadership Award recognised Dr. Downer’s leadership in designing and establishing two highly successful National HIV/AIDS Education and Training Center programmes, which she directed with a consortium of national partners for almost a decade of unbroken service.
“I am deeply honoured to be recognised for my work, and to receive the 2013 Congressional Black Caucus Health Brain Trust Leadership in Advocacy Award. I accept the award on behalf of my colleagues and Howard University,” said Dr. Goulda Downer, who, in her position with Howard University’s College of Medicine, overseas the mission of the university’s Capital Region AETC Telehealth Training Centre’s distance-based HIV technology programme. The Center is currently funded by the US federal government.
Jamaican born Howard University Asst. Professor, Dr. Goulda Downer (center) receives the 2013 Congressional Black Caucus Healthcare Leadership Award from USA Congresswoman Donna Christiansen. Sharing in the occasion (r) is President and CEO of the National Minority Quality Forum Dr. Gary Puckrein.
A graduate of Providence Primary School, Excelsior High School and the College of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST), now the University of Technology (UTech) in Jamaica, Goulda Downer received her undergraduate degree in human nutrition from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She then pursued her Master and Doctoral degrees at Howard University, focusing on clinical, public health, international and sports nutrition. She won a postdoctoral fellowship in paediatric nutrition at Georgetown University and was also trained by the Johns Hopkins University in nutritional epidemiology.
Expanding her work from the US to her beloved Caribbean region, Dr. Downer established the Howard University Caribbean Clinicians Preceptorship Program (HUCCPP). Its goal is to strengthen the health workforce of HIV clinicians in the Caribbean. Under the programme, 47 clinicians from the eight Caribbean countries with the highest HIV disease burden received training at Howard University in the skills necessary to provide competent, state-of-the-art HIV management in their native countries. They in turn, imparted those skills to over 2,500 of their peers. For this innovative effort, Dr. Downer received the “Diva” award from famed Jamaican-American actress Cheryl Lee Ralph in 2011.
A recognized expert in this field of nutrition and food security, Dr. Downer has also been involved in several international initiatives to assess the impact of the USAID Title II programme on food security, food aid and the health and nutritional status of country participants in Sub-Saharan Africa. These countries include South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Mozambique, Nigeria and Ethiopia. She has also worked on nutrition and food related strategies to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Applying her outstanding leadership ability and technical expertise, in 2011 Dr. Downer co-chaired the Nutrition and Agriculture Steering Committee for the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) for the entire West Africa Region. Under that programme, she conducted food, nutrition and agriculture programme audits and impact analysis and sustainability of developed in-country programmes (South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique, Uganda, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Guinea Bissau).
Dr. Goulda Downer is also the founder, president, and CEO of the Washington, DC-based METROPLEX Health and Nutrition Services, Inc., which was established in 1994.
