Fund spurs decade of growth in Brazil-focused research at Harvard
By
Amy Roeder
Nicolas Menzies (far right), with Harvard trainees, members of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, and other participants in the US-Brazil TB Research Collaboration / Courtesy of Nicolas Menzies
When Marcia Castro arrived at Harvard in 2006, few researchers at the University were working on Brazil-related issues. Now, their numbers can fill an auditorium, she said. Castro, Andelot Professor of Demography and chair of the Department of Global Health and Population, credits the uptick to opportunities opened up by a transformative grant from the Lemann Foundation.
Over the past 10 years, the Lemann Brazil Research Fund (LBRF)—which is administered by Harvard’s Office of the Provost for Research and the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs, in collaboration with the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and the Brazil Studies Program—has supported Harvard faculty in fields including public health, education, and environmental science. The funding has enabled collaborations between Harvard faculty and Brazilian scholars, created opportunities for students and early-career researchers, and advanced research on pressing needs.
Harvard Chan School faculty have received 13 of the 63 LBRF grants awarded through 2025. Below are three examples.
Understanding and controlling tuberculosis
Brazil has a high tuberculosis (TB) burden according to the World Health Organization and has seen newly reported cases rise in recent years. Nicolas Menzies, associate professor of global health, and Castro lead a team of Harvard Chan School and Brazilian researchers working to understand trends in TB epidemiology in the country and to identify approaches for improving care.
Since first receiving funding from the LBRF in 2017, the researchers have completed 12 studies that have contributed to knowledge around TB prevention, transmission, care, and survival in Brazil. They have also provided insights into the disease that are valuable for research and policy beyond the country, Menzies said. Study focuses have included trends in TB drug resistance, the impact of COVID-19 on TB, and differences in how areas across the country are experiencing the epidemic.
“This funding has been catalytic and provided resources for aspects of this collaboration that could not have been funded in other ways,” Menzies said. In particular, he noted that it enabled 10 students and early career researchers to participate in the studies.
The LBRF also has fostered a working relationship between the researchers and Brazil’s Ministry of Health (MOH). Menzies’ team meets monthly with MOH technical staff involved with infectious disease surveillance and program monitoring to share information.
“Personally, I have found this collaboration incredibly valuable,” Menzies said, “It has enabled some great research which I believe is valuable for both the MOH and wider TB community, and also it has been great to work with such capable individuals.”
Fostering mental health in marginalized communities
COVID-19 hit low-income communities in Brazil particularly hard, triggering a mental health crisis. David Williams, Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health, has been leading a pilot study that’s merging big data and behavioral science to look at how people in São Paulo’s marginalized neighborhoods are faring post-pandemic and to understand what mental health supports may be needed.
Although formal data analyses are not complete, Todd Reid, research associate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, said that the study is already yielding important, if unexpected, lessons. From 2024 to 2026, participants used a custom smartphone app that passively collected sensor-derived data on physical activity, sleep patterns, and behavioral rhythms, and prompted brief assessments about mood and other aspects of daily life. While the app performed its functions well, it was trust—not technology—that drove participation and engagement, Reid said.
Many residents were reluctant to install an app due in part to concerns over digital fraud, which has been rising in Brazil, but they were more interested in participating if asked by someone from the community whom they trusted. Researchers also found that while the daily emotional check-ins prompted by the app encouraged self-reflection in some participants, others disengaged after noting negative emotional states over multiple days. This may have been due to mental health stigma, emotional fatigue, or lack of access to care, the researchers said, underscoring the need to pair mental health monitoring with support systems.
The study is doing what pilot work is designed to do, Reid said—surface unexpected constraints, contextual realities, and challenges—and it’s already reshaping how he and his colleagues think about future work.
Funding from LBRF has been foundational for their efforts to understand and support mental health in Brazil’s marginalized urban communities, he said, adding that their collaboration with Brazilian researchers is generating new funding opportunities and project ideas. It also fostered the training of a doctoral student at the University of São Paulo Medical School.
Evaluating a new screening strategy for cervical cancer
Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers among women in Brazil, particularly in remote areas. While Pap tests are free in Brazil’s publicly funded health care system, there are inequities in access to the infrastructure required for Pap testing, follow-up diagnosis, and treatment. Jane Kim, K.T. Li Professor of Health Economics, and Nicole Campos, senior research scientist with the Center for Health Decision Science, are leading an effort looking at whether a new and more efficient cervical cancer screening method may be cost-effective.
In two remote sites in the Amazon region, the researchers’ Brazilian colleagues piloted one-week screening campaigns last year in which large numbers of women collected their own cervical samples to test for human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus that causes cervical cancer. Samples were processed on-site in a portable laboratory, and women who tested positive for high-risk HPV types had the option to receive immediate treatment.
Since receiving funding from the LBRF last April, Kim and Campos and their colleagues have been evaluating the cost-effectiveness and affordability of this “same-day screen-triage-treat strategy.” Working with colleagues from Brazil and from the U.S. National Cancer Institute-led PAVE Study Consortium, they have collected data on the cost of the screening campaigns and developed a health decision model that reflects the trajectory of HPV infections and cervical cancer in the Brazilian Amazon.
Campos said that she hopes their work will inform Brazil’s screening guidelines for under-screened women, which are currently under development. The evidence base generated by these screening campaigns for high-risk women in remote areas can also inform the delivery of new screening technologies in other resource-limited settings, she said.
Campos said that the team currently is in the process of sharing preliminary findings with stakeholders in Brazil. The findings suggest that the strategy is “likely to provide very good value for public health dollars,” she said.
About The Author
Amy Roeder
Senior Editor, Harvard Chan Magazine; Senior Writer in the Office of Communications
