From AIDS to Population Health: James D. Kelly

James D. Kelly will discuss and answer questions regarding his new book: From AIDS to Population Health: How an American University and a Kenyan Medical School Transformed Healthcare in East Africa. This talk is suitable for all ages. Signed copies of the book will be available to purchase at the talk.

The Book

From AIDS to Population Health explores the thirty-year history of a unique collaboration between the medical schools of Indiana University and Moi University in Kenya, as it progressed from combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in East Africa to the building of a national plan to provide universal healthcare to all. The Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) program focuses on the medical education of healthcare professionals who are building communities that can take care of themselves.

The overwhelming success of the AMPATH program and its continuing vibrant legacy today are showcased through dozens of striking photographs, telling interviews, and revealing anecdotes and encounters. It focuses on four of the most innovative projects among the fifty that AMPATH oversees: a microfinance officer who organizes villagers, an oncology nurse who runs outreach clinics, a farm extension agent working in partnership with a multinational agriculture corporation to improve farm output, and a special healthcare clinic exclusively for adolescents.

Over its thirty-year history, AMPATH has served more than a million clients and trained 2,600 medical professionals and community health workers, always guided by its motto “Leading with Care.” From AIDS to Population Health presents their compelling stories and explores the program’s continuing legacy for the first time.

“AMPATH’s growth from a groundbreaking response to HIV/AIDS to an even more impactful population health program is a remarkable feat, and the Kenyans and Americans who built the program are remarkable people. The program and the people both deserve a comprehensive, compelling book that tells their story. Fortunately for us, James Kelly has devoted his considerable reporting and photography skills to giving these inspiring health heroes—and we fortunate readers—a captivating book that meets the high standards set by this historic partnership.” ~Fran Quigley, Indiana University McKinney School of Law

“This excellent book highlights the unique, successful and long-term partnership between two institutions—one Kenyan and one American. In contrast to many academic partnerships, the work of Indiana and Moi University is not based on data flows from Africa to the US, but rather demonstrates a model of international solidarity. The AMPATH collaboration’s work to scale up HIV therapy and build health systems will serve to improve the resilience of health systems against the global threats of our time, from pandemics to climate change.” ~Joia S. Mukherjee, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer, Partners In Health, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

The Author

James Kelly received a doctorate in mass communication specializing in journalism from Indiana University Bloomington in 1990. From 1990 to 2007 he was on the School of Journalism faculty at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. In fall 2007 he joined the Indiana University School of Journalism as an Associate Professor. From 2015-18 he was the first Director of Undergraduate Studies in the new Media School which combined journalism with telecommunications and film studies. Since 2019 he has been the Director of Journalism.

Prior to entering graduate school he worked as a staff photographer for the South Bend Tribune in Indiana and for the Associated Press in West Virginia. He has completed photographic reporting assignments for a number of major newspapers and national magazines. He was a researcher for the PBS television documentary, Studebaker: Less Than They Promised, a Peabody Award winner in 1983. Dr. Kelly also holds a Master of Arts degree from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from West Virginia University.

His research areas include the influence of digital imaging technology on news photo credibility and audience understanding of photojournalism ethics. He is the former editor of Visual Communication Quarterly and is more recently co-editor of The Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media, published by Routledge, 2020.

His teaching areas include photojournalism, graphic communication and publication design, journalism ethics, the mass media’s role in society, and the reporting of HIV/AIDS and healthcare. He is a Herbert Frederic Lieber Distinguished Teaching Professor. He regularly teaches a summer session course that takes Media School students to East Africa where they report on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Their stories have been published in African and American newspapers.

Since 1990, Dr. Kelly has participated in a series of projects in South Asia and East Africa aimed at strengthening the practice of journalism and the ties between mass media newsrooms and journalism departments at universities. He has traveled extensively in South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) and in East Africa (Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia). In 1998 he spent his sabbatical at the Open University of Sri Lanka where he wrote a textbook to help journalists there use the Internet. In 2019 he was a Fulbright Scholar at Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya where he did research on job motivation and satisfaction among healthcare workers working for AMPATH, a 30-year partnership between the medical schools at IU and Moi University. He also taught a photojournalism course at the university and conducted workshops for photojournalists in Nairobi.

He is a native of Hinton, West Virginia, is married to Carol Kelly, and has two daughters: Anna, an education consultant in New York City and Megan, a graduate student at Columbia University in New York City. He is an avid, if slow, road bicyclist.

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