Robert Blum
Brief biography
Robert Blum is the emeritus William H. Gates, Sr. Professor Bloomberg School of Public Health and the immediate past Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. He is currently the Principle Investigator (PI) on a 10-country study of gender norm change among young adolescents—the Global Early Adolescent Study and co-PI on a three country adolescent mental health study in Kenya, Indonesia and Vietnam.
He has edited two books, and has written over 300 journal articles, book chapters and special reports. Past-President of the Society for Adolescent Medicine he has served on the American Board of Pediatrics; is a past chair of the Guttmacher Institute Board of Directors and was inaugural chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Adolescent Health.
He is a consultant to The World Bank, UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) where recently he authored the guidance on adolescent pregnancy, the WHO where he has served on the TAG of the MCH Department as well as the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group of the Human Reproductive Program. He has been awarded the Society for Adolescent Medicine’s Outstanding Achievement Award (1993); the APHA Herbert Needleman Award “for scientific achievement and courageous advocacy” on behalf of children and youth; Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Vince Hutchins Award “…to a lifetime of distinguished service to improve the health of MCH populations.” In 2014 he received the American Public Health Association’s Martha May Eliot Award honoring “extraordinary service to mothers and children [and adolescents]”; and the University of Minnesota Outstanding Alumnus Award from the School of Public Health.
