About the FXB Center
The François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights was founded and endowed by Albina du Boisrouvray in 1993. Her son, François-Xavier, tragically lost his life while on a helicopter rescue mission in 1986. Endowing the Center in 1993 with the support of the FXB Foundation, Albina sought to perpetuate the values, generosity, and compassion that motivated François-Xavier, who strove especially to protect children. The Center is premised on the inextricable link between health and human rights, as advanced by founding director Dr. Jonathan M. Mann and strongly supported by then-Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Harvey Fineberg. Read our one-pager here.
Our Mission
We use interdisciplinary approaches to promote equity and dignity for those oppressed by racism, poverty and stigma, nationally and around the world. We are proud to partner with a diverse group of scholars, educators, elected officials, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and members of the international policy community to advance health and human rights, and to show the harmful effects of violations on children.
What sets FXB apart is its commitment to filling critical gaps in mainstream academic scholarship. It is the only university-wide center in the United States dedicated to the health and human rights of Palestinian and Roma people, advancing rigorous research and shaping policy conversations too often ignored. This also includes pioneering work on unaccompanied migrant children and more generally child protection, a field long neglected in academia precisely because children cannot advocate for themselves. Building on this foundation, and as one of the few global centers for health and human rights that directly engages with U.S. structural inequality, FXB underscores the deep connection between marginalization and poor health outcomes—affirming that human rights are universal and must be upheld not only abroad, but also in the United States.
Our Vision
We envision a world that fulfills the human rights of all people, with a special attention to children, and protects them from injustices imposed by discrimination, poverty, conflict and disaster. At FXB, we believe that health is a human right—and that upholding that right requires confronting the structural violence that renders it inaccessible to so many. Since its founding over 30 years ago, the FXB Center has focused deliberately on urgent and overlooked priorities, beginning with children orphaned by AIDS—an area largely absent from academic discourse at the time.
Our Work
The FXB Center recognizes that people whose rights are violated have difficulty protecting their health and people without good health cannot enjoy or defend their rights.