Disease-Poverty Traps
Notre Dame biologist Professor Jason Rohr takes us to West Africa to confront one of humankind’s most insidious feedback loops: the “disease-poverty trap.” In these environments, systemic poverty actively fuels the spread of disease, while chronic illness relentlessly deepens economic hardship. His research perfectly illustrates how looking at poverty from every angle–including the biological–is vital to breaking the complex webs of inequality
Experience the Event
Presented by Notre Dame Poverty Initiative
In this episode, biologist Professor Jason Rohr takes us to West Africa to confront one of humankind’s most insidious feedback loops: the “disease-poverty trap.” In these environments, systemic poverty actively fuels the spread of disease, while chronic illness relentlessly deepens economic hardship. His groundbreaking research was originally shared with Notre Dame’s Poverty Research Fellows–a passionate cohort of undergraduates dedicated to wielding rigorous, evidence-based research to uncover lasting pathways out of poverty. Professor Rohr’s research perfectly illustrates how looking at poverty from every angle–including the biological–is vital to breaking the complex webs of inequality
Recordings coming soon!
Poverty Research From Every Angle highlights Notre Dame faculty from across the University leading the charge. This approach is critical because poverty is never a single problem with a single solution–it is a complex web of interconnected challenges spanning health, education, the environment, and our legal systems. No single discipline holds the entire picture, but each illuminates something the others cannot see alone. Over the course of this series, you will see how Notre Dame’s brightest minds are bridging these fields, sharing impactful research, and collaborating to build real, lasting paths out of poverty.
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Meet the Faculty: Jason Rohr
Professor Jason Rohr, department chair in Biology at the University of Notre Dame, researches planetary health, focusing on how natural and anthropogenic environmental changes, mainly climate change, pollution, and alterations to biodiversity, affect wildlife populations, species interactions, and the spread of both wildlife and human diseases. He holds BA degrees in Biology and Environmental Studies, a MA in Teaching Biology, and a PhD in Ecology all from Binghamton University, and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Kentucky and Penn State University. The primary aim of his laboratory is to understand, and develop solutions to, environmental problems to eliminate poverty and improve human health and a sustainable co-existence with the natural world.