Global Health Track

Program Description

The overall purpose of the global health concentration is to introduce students to core topics and challenges in global health and discuss how these issues have evolved over time. The program will start with an introduction to essential concepts and frameworks used to evaluate global health issues and provide an overview of the global burden of disease. Critical links between health, disease and socio-economic factors will be explored. A variety of global health topics will be covered including water and sanitation, maternal/child health, global health epidemiology and policy, communicable and non-communicable diseases, the relationship between political and cultural processes and health, and factors contributing to disparate health outcomes in population groups. To meet requirements for course completion and demonstrate the application of knowledge gained, students will be instructed to participate in a field study and complete a scholarly project that that addresses a pertinent global health issue.

Topics will be presented in this course by the following methods – reading assignments, “mini-lectures” emphasizing key points, student-led discussions of assigned cases, web-based videos, workshops, review quizzes, and field experience. Prior to attending each class session, students are expected to have reviewed the assigned case(s), chapter assignments, and web-based videos. The course is structured to highlight the knowledge, skill, and values that are shared by all health professionals and demonstrate examples of interprofessional collaboration in global health.

At the culmination of the FLEX Phase, all students will present their work at the FLEX Fair in either oral or poster format.

FLEX Pathways Core Objectives

1. Develop skills for self-directed and lifelong learning.
2. Demonstrate strategies for analyzing, identifying and improving personal deficiencies in knowledge and skills by setting learning and improvement goals.
3. Define a scholarly question.
4. Incorporate constructive feedback.
5. Retrieve, critically appraise, and integrate current, evidence‐ or research-based biomedical information into patient care, clinical decision-making, or scholarly work.
6. Make judgments and draw conclusions based on evidence.
7. Apply the foundational principles of hypothesis-driven inquiry to patient care.
8. Apply foundational principles of service‐learning with reflection on outcomes for patients and populations.
9. Communicate effectively with patients, families, colleagues, and the public through the use of active listening and appropriate verbal, nonverbal and written skills.
10. Prepare an oral presentation of their project and communicate their findings to their peers at the end of the program and at other institutional forums.
11. Described the key ethical principles and specific issues involved in the planning, implementation and completion of human subjects research.

Global Health Track-Specific Objectives

1. Define a scholarly question with a focus on global health.
2. Complete the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) mandatory training on the Responsible Conduct of Research.
3. Gain an understanding of global health with an emphasis on the prevailing chronic and infectious diseases and their global pattern of distribution.
4. Become familiar with the essential principles of epidemiology that are applied in global health.
5. Understand the relationship between development and health.
6. Understand the relationship between political and cultural processes and health.
7. Become familiar with global and local strategies currently being used to address health inequities and the global burden of disease.
8. Gain exposure to different health care systems.
9. Understand the basics of how to plan, design and evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based program to address a specific health problem or health disparity.

Mentor Role and Responsibilities