By Kevin Lavery, KWMU.
St. Louis, MO. – St. Louis University is forming an alliance with the World Health Organization to develop programs to prevent and control non-communicable diseases.
Dr. Bill True with the SLU School of Public Health says the collaboration will help train doctors to use evidence-based research to combat conditions such as obesity and Type-2 diabetes. True says doctors on the front lines of public health don't always have access to vital information.
"I think one of the barriers has been that there's sophisticated scientific literature behind a lot of what goes on in public health, but the practitioners really are kind of removed from that literature and those findings," True said. "So we're trying to bridge that gap."
True says the university's relationship with WHO allows it to expand its presence overseas.