Global Health Initiatives
“It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people.” —Jawaharlal Nehru
Education
Undergraduate
Currently the University of Delaware offers an Introduction to Global Health course (HLPR 233) as part of its minor in Public Health. The course is available to both matriculated and non-matriculated students, and to all majors across the campus. For more information, contact Dr. Mike Peterson.
Medical School
Dr. Jim Plumb at Jefferson is coordinating the College within a College (CWIC) program, as well as working on GH electives. Since1992, he has worked with partners in Public Health in Uganda, East Africa. Over 60 students, residents and faculty have been able to work in Uganda and four faculty from Makerere University and Hospice Uganda have spent time in the U.S. For the past five years, he has been involved in the Rwanda Health and Healing Project in Gisenyi, Rwanda directing multiple interdisciplinary Public Health projects, and served as a visiting lecturer at the Medical School of the National University of Rwanda (NUR) in Butare. Twelve Rwandan medical students have spent two months on Jefferson’s campus in the Center for Urban Health, and the Departments of Family and Community Medicine and Pediatrics.
Dr. Omar Khan at Christiana directs a Global Health elective at ICDDR,B in Bangladesh (www.icddrb.org) and at the Independent University of Bangladesh (www.iub.edu.bd) which has hosted medical students and residents in family medicine & pediatrics. The ICDDR,B elective is at one of the largest tropical medicine research centers in the developing world, and includes a hospital component. The IUB rotation provides training in classic public/community health fieldwork, surveys and data collection.
Listen to a personal experience shared by an undergraduate student, who was accepted into medical school: Example of Student Engaged with DHSA
Graduate School (Public/Population health)
Dr. Rob Simmons at the Jefferson School of Population Health has worked with Harsh Sule and Bon Ku of the Jefferson Emergency Department Fellowship to include the MPH program within the two year global health fellowship.
Through Rob’s leadership, the Jefferson School of Population Health, MPH Program is planning to develop a Global Health (GH) Concentration where MPH students focus their coursework, clerkship experience, and capstone project on global health. Students in this concentration will take HPL 550, “International Models of Healthcare Organization & Delivery” as a required course in lieu of the traditional HPL 500 “US Healthcare Organization & Delivery required course for JSPH students. In addition, MPH students in the GH Concentration will take their three elective courses in Global Health. Students’ clerkship experience and capstone projects will have global health themes. Below is a summary of the three elective courses for the MPH GH Concentration and summary descriptions for the MPH GH Concentration Clerkship and Capstone experiences.
Dimensions of Global Health – taught by Barchi/Plumb. This existing foundation course in global health is to be taken before the other two elective courses. The course introduces students to global health as a multi-dimensional concept shaped by biological, behavioral, societal and environmental processes. Students explore major issues in global health from the perspective of various health disciplines. The course emphasizes issues in less developed countries, such as measurement and determinants of health; health and socio-economic development; policy, trade and health; and health and human rights.
Current Issues in Global Health – taught by Khan. The course will address global environmental health, gender issues in global health, global health research ethics, challenges with infectious disease prevention, treatment, and eradication, chronic disease prevention diagnosis, and treatment, rare diseases, human rights, and global health policies and laws.
Political, Social and Economic Dimensions of Global Health – taught by Pilling. The course will focus on leadership development, public/private partnerships, resource development and sustainability, outcome measures, government and non-governmental organizations, and international relations and global health.
Global Health Clerkship – Students in the Global Health Track can develop a Clerkship either locally involving an organization serving multi-cultural diverse populations in the U.S., or internationally.
Global Health Capstone Project – Students in the GH Track would conduct a Capstone project focusing on multi-cultural populations in the US or a global public health issue that could be studied either here in the U.S. or internationally.