Spouse(s) John Head Alma mater Harvard University | Name Claire Broome Education Harvard University | |
Born August 24, 1949 (age 74)
Tunbridge Wells, UK ( 1949-08-24 ) Profession Epidemiologist and Physician | ||
Claire Veronica Broome (born August 24, 1949) is an American epidemiologist, specializing in public health surveillance methodology, who has contributed to the development and effective utilization of key vaccines against bacterial pathogens.
Contents
Biography
Claire Broome was born in Tunbridge Wells, England, on August 24, 1949, the daughter of Heather (Platt), a chemist and technical librarian, and Kenneth R. Broome, a civil engineer. The family emigrated to the United States in 1952, where Claire attended elementary school in La Habra, CA and Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield, CA. She earned a baccalaureate magna cum laude in biochemistry from Harvard University (Cambridge, MA) in 1970, and an MD from Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA) in 1975.
Following an internship in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (1975–77), she joined the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer (1977–79) and served with the CDC for over 25 years, eventually holding the positions of Deputy Director (1994–99), Acting CDC Director (1998), and Senior Advisor for Integrated Heath Information Systems (2000–06). In 1996 she was elected to the Institute of Medicine.
During this period, Dr. Broome served as a chairperson for the World Health Organization (WHO) Steering Committee for Encapsulated Bacteria, which was responsible for funding and implementing a research portfolio on vaccines needed to prevent bacterial meningitis and pneumonia in developing countries (part of the WHO Programme for Vaccine Development, a predecessor of the CVI and GAVI).
Beginning in 1999, she led the development and implementation of the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS), a project to transform public health surveillance in the US by obtaining public health relevant clinical lab test results electronically. These systems use the same standards which have been endorsed for clinical Electronic Health records; the majority of states in the country are now implementing one or more NEDSS functions. She also served as CDC's participant in national public private consortia to accelerate standards based Electronic Health Records.
Broome has served as an advisor to the World health Organization, World bank, Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Wellcome Trust; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; US FDA (formerly member, Vaccines and Related Biologicals Advisory Committee); Institute of Medicine (member, Board on Global Health); US AID (Consultative Group on Vaccine development, Children's Vaccine Initiative Project).
Key scientific contributions
As an EIS officer at the CDC within the Special Pathogens Branch, Bacterial Pathogens Division, Broome contributed to the understanding of several diseases of high public interest including Legionnaires' Disease, pneumococcal vaccine evaluation, meningococcal disease and Toxic Shock Syndrome. Notable accomplishments included development of a new method for observational measurement of the effectiveness of the pneumoccal polysaccharide vaccine (the "indirect cohort" method), which has been used since then to assess serotype specific effectiveness, duration of effectiveness, and effectiveness in groups with underlying disease; design of field trials to evaluate vaccine performance, including duration of meningococcal effectiveness in Burkina Faso; Group B meningococcal vaccine efficacy in Cuba; and Haemophilus influenza type b conjugate vaccine impact on pneumonia in the Gambia; creation of funded population based on active surveillance sites for invasive bacterial pathogens (the forerunner of domestic Emerging Infections Programs); and demonstration that epidemic and sporadic listeriosis was a food-borne disease.
Awards
Broome was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1996. Professional awards include the PHS Distinguished Service Award; the Surgeon General's Medallion; the Infectious Disease Society of America's Squibb Award for Excellence of Achievement in Infectious Diseases; the John Snow Award from the American Public Health Association, Epidemiology Section; Charles Shepard Award 1986; Langmuir Award co-author 1981, 1983, 1988, 1989, 1993.