This article will answer every question you have about Paul Farmer. Below are some of the frequently asked questions about him.
- What does Paul Farmer do for a living?
- Who are Paul Farmer’s parents and siblings?
- What are Paul Farmer’s interests and hobbies?
- Is Paul Farmer married or does he have a girlfriend/ boyfriend?
- Does Paul Farmer have any children?
- Where is Paul Farmer now?
- How tall is Paul Farmer?
- How much money does Paul Farmer earn?
- What is Paul Farmer’s net worth?
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Who is Paul Farmer?
Paul Edward Farmer was an American professional medical anthropologist and physician. He held an MD and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he was the Kolokotrones University Professor. As well as the chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Farmer was the co-founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization. Since 1987, the organization has provided direct health care services and undertaken research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Farmer was also a professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Paul and his colleagues in the U.S. and abroad have pioneered novel community-based treatment methods that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings in the U.S. and abroad. Their service is documented in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancel, British Medical Journal, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and Social Science and Medicine.
He has also written widely on health and human rights, the role of social inequalities in the distribution and outcome of infectious diseases, and global health. Farmer was recognized as ”the man who would cure the world,” as described in the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. The story of PIH is narrated in the 2017 documentary Bending the Arc. Farmer was a proponent of liberation theology.

How old is Paul Farmer?
Paul Edward Farmer was aged 62 by the time of his death on February 21, 2022, in Butaro, Rwanda. He was born on October 26, 2959, in North Adams, Massachusetts, U.S. Farmer shares his birthday with famous people including Hillary Clinton, Drew Gooden, Seth MacFarlane, Tom Cavanagh, Bootsy Collins, Dylan McDermott, Cary Elwes, Raveena Tandon, Rita Wilson, Anthony Rapp, among others.
Paul Farmer Family
Who are Paul Farmer’s parents?
Paul Edward Farmer was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, to his parents. He was then brought up in Weeki Wachee, Florida together with his siblings. No information is available about his parents as he had kept most of his personal life very private.
Does Paul Farmer have siblings?
Farmer was born to his parents in a family of two sons. He has one sibling, brother Jeff Farmer, who is a former professional wrestler.
Paul Farmer Education
Farmer attended Hernando High School in Brooksville, Florida, where he was elected president of his senior class before graduating. He then joined Duke University as a Benjamin N. Duke Scholar, before graduating summa cum laude in 1982, with a Bachelor of Arts in medical anthropology. Farmer later attended Harvard University and graduated in 1990, with an MD and a Ph.D. in medical anthropology.
Paul Farmer Interests
Farmer had authored various books including
- Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History. Paul Farmer. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020
- AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992, 1993, 2006 edition
- The Uses of Haiti, Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1994, 2003, 2005 edition
- Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, revised 2001 edition
- Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, 2005 edition
- Global Health in Times of Violence, co-edited with Barbara Rylko-Bauer and Linda Whiteford, School for Advanced Research Press, 2009 edition
- Women, Poverty & AIDS: Sex, Drugs and Structural Violence (Series in Health and Social Justice), with coauthor Margaret Connors, Common Courage Press; Reprint edition (September 1996)
- Partner to the Poor: A Paul Farmer Reader. Ed. Haun Saussy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010
- Haiti After the Earthquake, Ed. Abbey Gardner and Cassia van der Hoof Holstein. PublicAffairs, July 12, 2011
- To Repair the World: Paul Farmer Speaks to the Next Generation. Ed. Jonathan Weigel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013.
- In the Company of the Poor: conversations between Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez. Ed. Michael Griffin and Jennie Weiss Block. Orbis Books, 2013
- Reimagining Global Health. Paul Farmer, Jim Yong Kim, Arthur Kleinman, and Matthew Basilico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013.
Paul Farmer Wife
Farmer was married by the time of his death, having married in 1996. He was married to Didi Bertrand Farmer, a Haitian medical anthropologist, and community health specialist. Didi has led various initiatives at Partners in Health, with her recent work focusing on empowering girls and young women in Haiti and Rwanda. The couple has three children together.
Paul Farmer Kids
Farmer and his loving and supportive Haitian wife, Didi, have three children together. Their children are son Sebastian Farmer, and daughters, Elizabeth Farmer and Catherine Farmer.
Paul Farmer Height
American medical anthropologist and physician, Farmer had a well-built, and muscular body with a standing height of 5 ft 9.5 in (1.77 m) and had a moderate weight.
Paul Farmer International work
Farmer together with Ophelia Dahl, Jim Yong Kim, Todd McCormack, and Thomas J. White, co-founded Partners In Health in 1987. PIH started in Cange in the Central Plateau of Haiti and at the time of Farmer’s death in February 2022 operated 16 sites across the country, with almost 7,000 employees. In 2013, Hopital Universitaire de Mirebalais opened and provides tertiary care to patients, inclusive of oncology and trauma surgery services. PIH also works in Lesotho, Rwanda, Malawi, Peru, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Liberia, the Navajo Nation, and Russia. The University of Global Health Equity is an initiative of PIH that began in 2015 and focused on delivering the highest quality of health care. It achieves these by addressing the critical social and systemic forces causing inequalities and inefficiencies in health care delivery.
The author Tracy Kidder wrote Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, in 2003, which describes Farmer’s work in Peru, Haiti, and Russia. Farmer was then named Chair of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, in May 2009, succeeding Jim Yong Kim, his longtime friend, and colleague. Harvard University’s President, Drew Gilpin Faust, and the President and Fellows of Harvard College, named Farmer as a University Professor, on December 17, 2010. This is the highest honor that the University can bestow on one of its faculty members. He was also named United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti in August 2009, (serving under former U.S. President Bill Clinton), in his capacity as Special Envoy.
2012 to 2022
Paul was selected as the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Community Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti in December 2012. He was among the 38 Harvard faculty to sign a letter to The Harvard Crimson defending Professor John Comaroff in February 2022. John had been found to have violated the university’s sexual and professional conduct policies. The letter had defended Comaroff as ”an excellent colleague, advisor and committed university citizen” and expressed dismay over his being sanctioned by the University. Following the students filling a lawsuit with detailed allegations of Comaroff’s actions and the University’s failure to respond, Paul was among the several signatories to state that he wished to retract his signature. He later apologized for not evaluating the case and doing due diligence.
Paul was Editor-in-Chief of Health and Human Rights Journal. He was on the board of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy: he was a co-founder and Board Member of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. Farmer was on board of PIVOT, a recently founded healthcare and research organization operating in Madagascar. He was also a member of the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO aimed at developing the Health Impact Fund. Farmer then worked on the Global Advisory Council of GlobeMed, a student-driven global health organization serving via a partnership model.
He worked on the Advisory Board of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, an international student-driven advocacy organization that works on matters of medicine development and affordability. Paul was a board member of Kageno Worldwide, Inc., a community development agency that has served in Kenya and Rwanda. He was additionally on the Board of Trustees for EqualHealth, which builds critical consciousness towards health equity.
Death
Paul died in his sleep on February 21, 2022, aged 62, in Butaro, Rwanda. He had been involved in medical education at Butaro District Hospital and the Butaro campus of the University of Global Health Equity, which accepted its first class of medical students in 2019.
Paul Farmer Net Worth
American professional medical anthropologist and physician, Paul has been active in his medical career from 1982 to 2022. He was among the highest-rated medical anthropologist with a lot of potential and efforts in health care services around the world. Farmer has earned a great fortune from his medical career and activism and had an estimated net worth of $14 million as of 2022, the time of his death.