Julio Frenk

Julio Frenk
6th President of the University of Miami
Incumbent
Assumed office August 16, 2015
Preceded by	Donna Shalala
Secretary of Health
In office December 1, 2000 – November 30, 2006
President	Vicente Fox
Preceded by	José Antonio González Fernández
Succeeded by	José Ángel Córdova
Personal details
Born	Julio José Frenk Mora (1953-12-20) December 20, 1953 (age 68) Mexico City, Mexico
Alma mater	National Autonomous University of Mexico (MD) University of Michigan (MPH, MA, PhD)
Awards	Calderone Prize (2018)

Julio José Frenk Mora (born December 20, 1953) is president of the University of Miami and has served in this role since 2015. He is the University of Miami's first Hispanic and native Spanish-speaking president. At the University of Miami, he also is a professor of public health sciences at the university's Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, professor of health sector management at its School of Business, and professor of sociology in its College of Arts of Sciences.

Prior to becoming University of Miami president, Frenk was dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University from 2009 to 2015. In a joint appointment with the Harvard Kennedy School, he also served as a Harvard professor of public health and international development. Prior to that, from 2000 to 2006, Frenk was the government of Mexico's Secretary of Health.

Early life and education[]

Frenk was born in Mexico City on December 20, 1953. His father and grandfather, a Jew who fled to Mexico from Nazi Germany, were both physicians.^[1]

Frenk received his medical degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1979 and went on to obtain a Master of Public Health (1981), a Master of Arts in sociology (1982), and a joint Doctor of Philosophy in medical care organization and sociology (1983), all from the University of Michigan.

Career[]

Early beginnings[]

Frenk with Mexican president Vicente Fox and education secretary Reyes Tamez in Los Pinos during the initialing ceremony of the National Institute of Genomic Medicine

In 1984, Frenk assumed the position of founding director of the Centre of Public Health Research in the Ministry of Health of Mexico, a role he held until 1987. Following that appointment, he went on to serve as the founding director general of the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico from 1987 to 1992. From 1995 to 1998, he served as executive vice president of the Mexican Health Foundation, a private non-profit organization, and director of its Centre for Health and the Economy.

Frenk also has served in several academic roles, including as a senior researcher at the National Institute of Public Health and as adjunct professor of medicine and national researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. In 1992–1993, he was visiting professor at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies at Harvard University's Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

In 1998, Frenk was appointed executive director of evidence and information for policy at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.

Mexico's Minister of Health, 2000–2006[]

Following the election of Vicente Fox in Mexico's 2000 presidential election, Frenk was appointed minister of health of Mexico, a position he held until December 2006.

In 2003, as Mexico's secretary of health, Frenk introduced a comprehensive national health insurance program called Seguro Popular, which expanded access to health care for tens of millions of previously uninsured Mexicans.^[2]

Frenk was among five final candidates for the position of director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2003 alongside Lee Jong-wook, Pascoal Mocumbi, Peter Piot, and Ismail Sallam; Lee was eventually appointed the position.^[3]

In 2004, Frenk was criticized by tobacco control advocates for his role in cutting an unusual deal with tobacco companies in which Philip Morris and British American Tobacco agreed to donate $400 million for health programs in Mexico over two and a half years but reserved the right to cancel the donation if cigarette taxes were raised^[4]

In July 2005, Frenk drew criticism from U.S. Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal over the Mexican Ministry of Health's decision to distribute the morning-after pill at Mexico's government health clinics.

In September 2006, the Mexican government again nominated Frenk as a candidate for the leadership of WHO.^[5] The British medical journal The Lancet published an editorial^[6] endorsing Frenk as the best candidate while The Wall Street Journal reported that Frenk's controversial 2004 tobacco deal could hurt his chances for election.^[7] Alongside Elena Salgado, Kazem Behbehani, Margaret Chan and Shigeru Omi, Frenk eventually became one of the five finalists; in November 2006, the position was awarded to Chan.

Harvard University[]

Julio Frenk is officially installed as the 6th president of the University of Miami on January 29, 2016

Following his service as Mexico's minister of health, Frenk was tapped to serve as senior fellow in the global health program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he counseled the foundation on global health issues and strategies.

Frenk subsequently served as dean of the faculty at Harvard University's School of Public Health from 2009 until 2015.^[8] While at Harvard, he was also the T & G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development, a joint appointment made with the Harvard Kennedy School.^[9] Under Frenk's leadership, Harvard's School of Public Health received its largest ever gift of $350 million and was renamed Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2014.^[10]

In addition to his role as dean of Harvard School of Public Health, Frenk co-chaired (alongside Lincoln Chen) the Commission on the Education of Health Professionals for the 21st Century, which published its final report in The Lancet in 2010. The report recommended that governments place the same emphasis on fighting cancer that they place on infectious diseases like AIDS and malaria.^[11] In 2013, Fenk joined Vicente Fox and others in campaigning for marijuana legalization at a series of events in the United States and Mexico.^[12]

In 2015, Frenk co-edited a collection of non-fiction essays on the subject of global health, "To Save Humanity," which include work from multiple contributors including Michelle Bachelet, Larry Summers, Elton John and himself.^[13]

University of Miami[]

Frenk assumed the presidency of the University of Miami on August 16, 2015, replacing Donna Shalala.^[14][15] He was officially inaugurated on January 29, 2016.^[16]

Other activities[]

• Exemplars in Global Health, Member of the Senior Advisory Board (since 2020)^[17]
• United Nations Foundation, Member of the Board of Directors (since 2016)^[18]
• Miami-Dade Beacon Council, Member of the Board of Directors (since 2015)^[19]
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2015)^[20]
• Commonwealth Fund, Member of the Board of Directors (since 2010)^[21]
• Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, chair of the Board^[22]
• Inter-American Dialogue, Member^[23]

Awards[]

• Cecilio A. Robelo Award for Scientific Research, State of Morelos, 1993.
• Frank A. Calderone Prize, 2018.^[24]
• Fellow, Michigan Society of Fellows, The University of Michigan, (1982–1984).
• National researcher, Mexican Research System, Mexico City, (1984–1998).
• International Fellow in Health, The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, (1986–1989).
• Member of the U.S. Institute of Medicine
• Member of the Inter-American Dialogue^[25]

Honors[]

• The Julio Frenk Professorship of Public Health Leadership was established with part of a September 2016, $10 million gift to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.^[26]

References[]

External links[]

• (in Spanish) Profile on the site of the Presidency of Mexico.
• (in Spanish) Ministry of Health.
• Profile at the Harvard School of Public Health
• Speeches and Events, Harvard School of Public Health
• Profile at the OECD website.
• Frenk supports pill, denies rift with Abascal Article on El Universal.^{[dead link]}
• https://web.archive.org/web/20130725040926/http://juliofrenk2006who.org/
• Dr Frenk gives a lecture on "Globalization and Health: Challenges to health systems in an interdependent world" on March 26, 2008
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7002127.stm
• The Lancet - Vol. 371, Issue 9607, January 12, 2008
• https://web.archive.org/web/20080914043151/http://www.thelancetglobalhealthnetwork.com/archives/112
• Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries