Doug Taren, PhD, MS

Associate Dean, Academic Affairs-Public Health

Douglas Taren, PhD, MS, focuses primarily on maternal and child nutrition with a special emphasis on decreasing health disparities within low income populations and countries. His studies and teaching experiences in maternal and child health have been conducted in several Latin American, Asian and African countries with funding from numerous organizations including USAID, FAO, NIH, CDC, and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. These projects have focused on food security programs with organizations such as Save the Children and Counterparts International, improving programs that prevent and treat vitamin A deficiency in pregnant women and young children, and effectiveness studies on decreasing mother-to-child HIV transmission. He also has worked on improving dietary assessment methods and community-based programs to decrease childhood obesity. Dr. Taren has been involved with developing a variety of innovative curricula for medical education and for public health practitioners. Dr. Taren received an NIH award to evaluate an integrated nutrition curriculum for medical education and has received funds from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau to develop graduate level training programs. He also was the principal investigator of a USAID grant to create a certificate program in public health in conjunction with El Colegio de Sonora. Most recently, he has served as a resource person to the World Health Organization Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group Monitoring and Evaluation Subgroup on Guidelines for the Assessment of Vitamin A, and Iron Status in Populations.