The Center for Health and Wellbeing yesterday announced that a certificate program in global health and health policy will be launched in fall 2008.
Students will study, on a global scale, how diseases interact with societies and how they can be managed using medical technologies and policy interventions. The program will be open to rising juniors in all departments.
Though a health policy program is currently offered to graduate students in the Wilson School, the new program will be the first chance for undergraduates to pursue a certificate in global health.
Christina Paxson, an economics professor who led the development of the certificate, said she was motivated to start the program by “conversations with students who say, ‘I would have loved it if there was something like [the graduate program] for undergraduates.’ ”
The program consists of two core courses in epidemiology and health policy, three elective courses and either independent research or a research internship in the summer prior to the student’s senior year.
Paxson emphasized the interdisciplinary nature of the program, citing the different backgrounds of the two professors who plan to co-direct the program: Thomas Shenk is a molecular biology professor, and Burton Singer is a professor in the Wilson School.
She also noted that at least nine departments will offer elective courses as part of the program. “We have great strengths in many [areas of] expertise,” Paxson said.
The Center is also strengthening the program by “develop[ing] an informal network of resources that students can hook into,” Paxson said.
Though the program has not made formal arrangements with the United Nations or the World Health Organization, students may be able to get internships from these and other global health organizations, she said.
Paxson said that the scope of the certificate will be broader than similar programs at other universities in that it will examine both developing and industrialized nations.
Some students have already begun to express interest in the program.
“I’m interested in pursuing it,” Lucia Diaz ’10 said. “I’m pre-med. I took a medical diplomacy course last semester, and it was very interesting.”
“I know a couple of my friends who are looking into it,” she added.
Matt McCarty ’10, a prospective molecular biology concentrator, said, “I think it’s a very interesting program. It’s geared towards pre-meds who want to get a greater policy picture.”
McCarty added, though, that he thinks he is more likely to continue on the usual molecular biology track rather than pursue the new certificate.
Paxson said that the global health and health policy certificate program will be fully implemented next fall.
“This has been way too much work to be a trial run,” Paxson said. “This is going to work. There is too much interest.”
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