Jonathan Smith filmed, edited, and directed the film They Go to Die. He is a lec­turer in Global Health and Epi­demi­ol­ogy of Micro­bial Dis­eases at Yale Uni­ver­sity and an affil­i­ate of the Yale Global Health Lead­er­ship Insti­tute, where he researches epi­demi­ol­ogy of TB and HIV in the con­text of migrant pop­u­lations. For his exten­sive work at as an ethno­graphic researcher and for cre­ativ­ity in the field of global health, he was awarded the Yale Global Health Lead­er­ship Insti­tute Field Expe­ri­ence Award (2010), the dis­tin­guished Low­ell S. Levin Award for Excel­lence in Global Health from Yale Uni­ver­sity (2011), and the Inter­na­tional Tuber­cu­lo­sis Sur­vival Prize from the Lilly MDR-TB Part­ner­ship (2011). Since he began research­ing the issue, he has been invited to speak on the inter­sec­tion of TB, HIV, and human rights at uni­ver­si­ties both domes­ti­cally and internationally.

Smith (left) with Mr. Mahaba in his home in South Africa (2011)

He received his Mas­ters of Pub­lic Health degree from Yale Uni­ver­sity. Before his research on this topic, he grad­u­ated with a Bach­e­lors of Sci­ence in Biol­ogy and Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­sity of Geor­gia where he researched cell sig­nal­ing path­ways in ovar­ian can­cer and later Human Mucol­ipi­do­sis II. Soon after grad­u­a­tion, he began his global health work in South Amer­ica, where he devel­oped hepati­tis B vac­ci­na­tion strate­gies for rural com­mu­ni­ties. It was this expe­ri­ence that brought him to the real­iza­tion that many pub­lic health mat­ters can­not sim­ply be cap­tured by tra­di­tional meth­ods such as sur­veys and inter­views, and cre­ated in him an appre­ci­a­tion for the con­cept of immer­sion into the very com­mu­nity at risk for dis­ease. He is cur­rently spear­head­ing the Visual Epi­demi­ol­ogy Project at Yale,  an effort to com­bine data-driven aca­d­e­mic dia­logue with an indi­vid­ual, story-driven component.

In regards to his ethno­graphic research, Smith writes, “A nar­row focus on a typ­i­cally broad pub­lic health mat­her affords us the extremely impor­tant oppor­tu­nity to add nuance as well as lev­els of depth and com­plex­ity to our under­stand­ing of broader health pat­terns and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. You must not under­mine the rich­ness of depth and explana­tory detail that such micro­analy­sis can afford to an under­stand­ing of the con­tex­tual dynam­ics and con­tra­dic­tions that influ­ence health behavior.”

You can con­tact Jonathan about They Go to Die or any of his other projects at: jonathan.p.smith@yale.edu or jonathan.smith@theygotodie-movie.com