Service to America’s Health and Environment

Threats like infectious disease and airborne pollutants don’t respect national boundaries, so our diplomats engage with other governments to ensure they are addressed before they cross our borders and harm Americans. Diplomats harness medical and environmental expertise, build local capacity to prevent or contain outbreaks and environmental threats, and negotiate global frameworks that ensure all nations are working in concert.

Photo on right: Participants learn to decontaminate medical equipment at Central Regional Training in Cape Coast, Ghana. USAID / Ghana’s Systems for Health Project.

Containing Infectious Disease and Environmental Threats

Jim Bever: Stopping the Spread of Ebola: When Ebola threatened the Ghanaian capital of Accra in 2014, it posed a risk to the health of Ghanaians and Americans alike: Ghana hosts over a million visitors per year, including many American citizens who could bring the deadly virus back to the United States.

Suzanne Butcher: Negotiating to Close the Hole in the Ozone Layer: Suzanne Butcher grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania and joined the US Foreign Service in 1970, serving for 28 years. As deputy director in the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES), she played a key role in international negotiations that led to the 1987 Montreal Protocol.

Nancy Powell: Responding to Bird Flu and Ebola: Diseases do not recognize borders, and their spread can threaten American citizens in our interconnected world. In 2014, for example, an Ebola outbreak in West Africa quickly spread to Dallas, TX.

Robert Clay: Countering the Spread of HIV/AIDS: During a childhood that took him from West Virginia to Kentucky and then Texas, Robert M. Clay knew he wanted to be a scientist. He followed this calling in 1984 to a position in the Science and Technology Bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).