Global Health Education Experience

Introduction: The MPH Program: Global Health Concentration

The Global Health Concentration is designed for students who anticipate studying, identifying, and solving public health problems in a global environment. It seeks to provide students an interdisciplinary set of skills; to prepare students to recognize biomedical, social, economic, and other factors that affect health; and to identify, design, monitor, and implement interventions that address health disparities. Most students graduating with this concentration are fully prepared to work in international settings and organizations. The Global Health concentration takes full advantage of the great breadth of Global Health related courses and scholarship at Tufts, which values active citizenship and internationalism. For additional details, please visit: Link to The Global Health Concentration

Concentration Leader: Odilia Bermudez, PhD, MPH, LDN

Global Health Programs

This program has been developed as a summer program, working in collaboration with the School of Medicine at the University of Panama. This program offers a unique language immersion opportunity with an emphasis on medical Spanish and a range of opportunities for MPH, MD, MD/MPH, DVM/MPH, MPH and MS-in Health Communication students to conduct their summer experiences. Placement sites include a variety of health care institutions in the Panama West Region, at either the Ministry of Health or the Social Security Institute, the two main arms of the health system in Panama.
Contact Faculty: Odilia Bermudez, PhD, MPH

The Department of Public Health & Family Medicine on behalf of Tufts University School of Medicine has entered into a cooperative agreement with the Christian Medical College (CMC)/Vellore, India to promote interest in the teaching and research activities of the respective institutions and to deepen the understanding at each institution of the economic, cultural and social issues related to its counterpart. To achieve these goals, Tufts and CMC are working together on the following initiatives: the advance of the CMC-Tufts Masters of Public Health (MPH) Program; the improvement of the clinical public health elective at CMC for students enrolled in Tufts MD/MPH program; and the development of a track for students enrolled in the Global Health Concentration in the Tufts MPH program.
Contact Faculty: Christine Wanke, MD

Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM), in conjunction with the University of Ghana Medical School (UGMS), have established a global health elective for fourth year medical students (MD, MD/MPH, and MD/MBA). The global health elective in Ghana will include a clinical rotation at UGMS's teaching hospital "Korle Bu Teaching Hospital" in a selection of medical specialties. Students are requested to complete an in-depth independent project in the area(s) of their interest.
Contact Faculty: Joyce Sackey, MD

This program is in collaboration with the Family and Reproductive Health Department of the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, and is designed to provide students with practical training in the field of maternal and child health. Students are assigned to work in community centers, and attend seminars and meetings at the School of Public Health.
Contact Faculty: Enku Kebede-Francis PhD

This program is in collaboration with the Straight Talk Foundation (STF) based in Kampala, Uganda. The mission of STF is to improve the lives of adolescents through behavior change communication programs. Project opportunities for Tufts students are offered in the areas of work of STF, particularly in development, testing and evaluation of educational and mass media materials for adolescents.
Contact Faculty: Prof. Susan Gallagher

Originally a 3-year NIH-funded (Fogarty International Center) program to link all of the graduate schools at Tufts around the topic area of Global Health is continuing as and administrative extension for two more years. The program is currently directed at the development of a new course for the Global Health Concentration of the Tufts MPH Program, and the expansion of our global health education network.
Contact Faculty: Jeffrey K. Griffiths, MD MPH&TM

Opportunities exist to work on projects in East Africa which utilize TUSK and capacity building in East Africa. Placement sites are academically based at the Institute of Public Health at Makerere University Kampala (Uganda), and the School of Public Health at Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Students will work on individually tailored projects. They will function as facilitators to assist faculty at these participating institutions with learning how to use TUSK, loading content into the servers, and in organizing discussion groups.
Contact Faculty: Jeffrey K. Griffiths, MD MPH&TM

Tufts University has a long established relationship with the Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment, Aging and Metabolism (CeSSIAM), a non-profit institution located in Guatemala, Central America. CeSSIAM is dedicated to promote and enhance the education, formation and professional orientation of students and young researchers, in biomedical and health issues related to the global problems affecting the region. Research focusing on vulnerable segments of the population underlines the institution's social commitment. The preferred topics are those related to nutrition, aging, chronic diseases and infectious diseases. Spanish is required.
Contact Faculty: Odilia Bermudez, PhD, MPH

Tufts has established a new collaboration with the Ethiopian Center of the African Medical and Research Foundation (http://www.amref.org/where-we-work/our-work-in-ethiopia/). AMREF works in three main programs: Community Partnering for Better Health; Health Systems and Policy Research, and Capacity Building.
Contact Faculty: Odilia Bermudez, PhD, MPH

This is a 5-year NIH-funded "Roadmap" program to (1) develop and implement a 'health and water' curriculum in the new Tufts University 'Water: Systems, Science, and Society' interdisciplinary program, and (2) develop and implement novel interdisciplinary internet-based curricula linking Tufts University with East African public health educators, researchers, and institutions. A first aim, already accomplished, was the implementation of MPH 241 Biology of Water and Health course which has an international focus and is co-taught with Prof. David Gute of the School of Engineering. Working on a second aim, we are supplying key East African and Indian universities with servers equipped with the TUSK course management software developed at Tufts to provide a mechanism for this collaboration.
Contact Faculty: Jeffrey K. Griffiths, MD MPH&TM

This is an all-University interdisciplinary program focused on water. Please visit: http://www.tufts.edu/water. The purpose of the WSSS program is to provide the multidisciplinary perspectives and tools to manage water related problems. This program has a major international focus and we have supported MA and PhD students in Ethiopia, Ghana, Ecuador, and elsewhere. Program Directors include: Paul Kirshen, PhD (Engineering/Fletcher) and Beatrice Rogers, PhD (Nutrition), Medical School Coordinator: Jeffrey K. Griffiths MD MPH&TM
Contact Faculty: Jeffrey K. Griffiths, MD MPH&TM

Student share their Global Health Experience:

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