You can't have public health without a public health system. We just don't want to be part of a mindless competition for resources. We want to build back capacity in the system.

He is editor-in-chief of Health and Human Rights Journal. White and Todd McCormack co-founded Partners In Health. PIH helps patients living in poverty to obtain effective drugs to treat tuberculosis and AIDS.

He was appointed as United Nations Secretary-General's Special Adviser for Community-based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti on 28 December 2012. His work is the subject of Tracy Kidder's 2003 book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. He currently resides in Kigali Rwanda.