Admissions to the Global Health Graduate/Professional Certificate were suspended in fall 2022 and will be discontinued as of fall 2025 . If you have any questions, please contact the department.

The Graduate/Professional Certificate in Global Health Program is designed to advance the knowledge and capabilities of learners with interests in global health. The certificate is available to graduate students and students in a professional degree program (typically in the health sciences).

The certificate curriculum focuses on global health topics and health issues that transcend national boundaries. Through this nine-credit program, which includes academic coursework and a global health field experience emphasizing two-way learning, students will be prepared to better address health challenges and disparities in a context of cultural diversity, both at home and abroad. Certificate candidates often work with partners and sites internationally, but may also apply a global lens to issues of health and wellbeing in Wisconsin and other parts of the United States. This global-to-local philosophy is important to the program. Through choices of elective/selective courses, students may focus their studies on health promotion, detection and treatment of disease, prevention and management of outbreaks, health policy, environmental health, or other current and important global health topics. The certificate emphasizes multidisciplinary learning and approaches to global health challenges.

Educational Benchmarks for Certificate Program

• To demonstrate self-guided learning habits, recognizing that experiential learning opportunities exist in many forms and that learning is a life-long endeavor.
• To interpret quantitative and qualitative information from the sciences, social sciences, and the humanities to inform global health work.
• To integrate contextually-grounded information about a location’s health, history, politics, culture, and environment into one’s learning experiences.
• To practice directed self-assessment and reflection about one’s experiences and chosen profession, including consideration of one’s role as a member of an interdisciplinary team.
• To compare and contrast the practice of health-related activities in different settings, including the social production of health and well-being.
• To draw connections between global experiences and local needs.
• To work effectively as a member of a diverse team to achieve shared goals.
• To effectively communicate ideas about health to other professions, as well as to community leaders and members of the general public.
• To recognize valuable opportunities for high and low-middle income countries to learn from one another, and creatively evaluate assets in addressing problems.
• To model ethical models of community-based engagement, recognizing the mutual benefit to learners and to the host community.

Admissions

Admissions to the Global Health Graduate/Professional Certificate were suspended in fall 2022 and will be discontinued as of fall 2025 . If you have any questions, please contact the department.

Consider applying to the Global Health Online Graduate/Professional Certificate instead.

Requirements

Completion of a minimum of nine credits is required for the certificate, including six core course credit requirements, one of which is a credit-based global health field experience, and three elective credits. A description of the core requirements and electives is provided below.

Core course requirements

¹

If possible, for optimal preparation, POP HLTH 718 should be taken prior to POP HLTH 640 and undertaking an independent field experience.

²

POP HLTH 640 is for students planning to do an independent global health field experience. It includes selecting a site, identifying a counterpart organization, developing a scope of work that is of mutual benefit to the student and the counterpart organization, and preparation for travel (health and safety).

Fourth year PharmD students who intend to fulfill the field requirement with an Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) may use PHM PRAC 673 Seminars in Global Health Pharmacy as the pre-requisite course in place of POP HLTH 640.

³

Students should take Independent Study 699 in the department of advisor, with certificate director approval.

Global Health Field Experience

(1-6 credits in total; 1 credit counts toward certificate requirements)

A global health field course/experience is an academic credit-based learning experience in a setting relevant to global health. Field courses/experiences are generally carried out during the summer (less commonly within the normal academic calendar if they do not interfere with class attendance or completion of requirements for registered coursework); 1 week of on-site learning is equivalent to 1 credit. (Please note that only one field experience credit counts toward certificate requirements; additional field course credits earned cannot be applied to the elective requirements.)

Students may elect to do: a faculty-led interdisciplinary group field course administered by the UW–Madison Office of International Academic Programs (IAP) or they may choose to design an independent field experience at the site of their choice, with approval of an academic advisor and the certificate program director. Field experiences usually take place in a country outside the United States, but may also be carried out in the U.S., working with international/underserved populations or addressing health issues that have global implications. Students may also work with international agencies, such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or nongovernmental organizations.

Field experience requirements:

Students must be in good academic standing to participate in a global health field experience.

For faculty-led group courses (Thailand, Uganda, Ecuador), students are required to take the related prerequisite campus-based course (POP HLTH 644 Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Global Health and Disease) and apply to participate in the field course through the campus-wide Office of International Academic Programs.

For independent field experiences, certificate students must prepare a proposal, to be reviewed and approved by his or her advisor and the Certificate Program Director, which describes project goals and objectives and outlines a tentative schedule of activities.  Students must register for independent study credit in an appropriate school or department (a 699 course number in most health sciences and graduate departments).  Master of Public Health (MPH) students who are also global health certificate students and doing an independent field experience should register for PUBLHLTH 788 Applied Practice Experience, in place of a 699. Please note that POP HLTH 640 Foundations in Global Health Practice, is a prerequisite for PUBLHLTH 788 Applied Practice Experience for these dual MPH/global health certificate students.

All students completing independent field experiences are required by the School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) to execute an affiliation agreement between the field site organization and the SMPH/University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Upon completion of the field experience, all students must submit to the Certificate program office:

• A summary of reflections on the field course/experience. (This may take the form of a journal kept throughout the field course/experience, or if a journal was not kept, a template will be provided.);
• An instructor evaluation of the student; and,
• A reference-cited, academic paper/project report.

Students completing an independent field experience will also need to submit a site evaluation.

Learning Outcomes

1. Exhibit the ability to describe and compare the health care systems in different areas of the world (such as: an understanding of pros and cons of systems, comparison to the US system, and trends in the evolution of health care systems over time).
2. Demonstrate knowledge of the epidemiology of common global health concerns, both communicable and non-communicable (such as: differences between high/middle/low income countries and programs to mitigate the impacts of these health issues such as the millennium and sustainable development goals).
3. Demonstrate the ability to integrate information from multiple perspectives into an assessment of a country/location's health status (such as: history, politics, culture, societal structure, economics, environmental sciences, health care system(s), health databases, disease epidemiology, human rights, human subjects protections).
4. Model ethical behavior in global health engagement (such as: appreciation of the bidirectional nature of learning and mutual benefits between stakeholders and learners, cultural humility and flexibility, recognition of the importance of program sustainability over time, openness to new information/ideas).
5. Demonstrate professionalism, effective communication, leadership, problem-solving, and collaboration across multiple health education disciplines and stakeholders in addressing a global health issue (including an understanding of One Health approaches).
6. Exhibit the ability for growth in one's approach to global health work through self-assessment and structured reflection (such as: personal biases and perspectives, views on equity and disparities, personal limitations)

People

Population Health Sciences
School of Medicine and Public Health
Epidemiology, PhD
(608) 265-8108
pophealth@mailplus.wisc.edu
http://www.pophealth.wisc.edu

Maureen Durkin, Department Chair
maureen.durkin@wisc.edu
(608) 263-7507
707c Warf Office Building
610 Walnut St.
Madison, WI 53726