January 8, 2012

Dartmouth President Hopes to Apply Public-Health Lessons From Rwanda and Peru to Binge Drinking

Dartmouth President Hopes to Apply Public-Health Lessons from Rwanda and Peru to Binge Drinking 1

Jim Cole, AP Images

Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College, is leading 32 institutions in applying a public-health approach to binge drinking.

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close Dartmouth President Hopes to Apply Public-Health Lessons from Rwanda and Peru to Binge Drinking 1

Jim Cole, AP Images

Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College, is leading 32 institutions in applying a public-health approach to binge drinking.

By Libby Sander

Controlling infectious diseases and binge drinking wouldn't seem to call for the same strategies, but Jim Yong Kim thinks they might.

Before Dr. Kim became president of Dartmouth College, in 2009, he had a lengthy career in medicine and public health. Trained as a physician and an anthropologist, he worked to prevent the spread of HIV in Rwanda and to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis in Peru. Now he's hoping that the public-health methodology he used in both places—an