281877
An interdisciplinary approach to global health: The santiago practicum pilot
Marlyn Delva, EdD,
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY
Linda F. Cushman, PhD,
Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY
The importance of interdisciplinary approaches to addressing global health has received widespread support and recognition. Despite this fact, strong conceptual and evaluation frameworks for preparing the global health workforce remain limited and sorely needed. Recently, ASPH published a conceptual framework with corresponding core competencies for global health workforce development. Drawing upon this framework, Columbia and New York universities jointly partnered with leading universities in the Dominican Republic to implement a pilot project designed to foster interdisciplinary responses to global health problems. The long-term goal of the pilot project is to develop empirical and conceptual knowledge that can support the training of future global health professionals and to disseminate practice based scholarship that can inform the development of “best practices” relevant for the training needs of global health professionals of diverse disciplinary backgrounds (i.e. social work, public health, medicine and nursing). The present submission seeks to offer preliminary findings from our experiences implementing an innovative pilot project. Specifically, the presentation seeks to (1) offer a strong conceptual framework describing interdisciplinary global health practice and workforce development, (2) identify the challenges and opportunities for training distinct disciplines in global health, (3) describe the training components and core ingredients of global health practicum designed for interdisciplinary graduate students and (4) identify preliminary strategies for evaluating the effectiveness of interdisciplinary global health training programs. The Santiago Practicum Pilot demonstrates that an interdisciplinary approach to public health issues may be effective and should be considered when preparing the global workforce.
Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Learning Objectives:
Identify one challenge and one opportunity for training distinct disciplines in global health.
Describe two training components of a global health practicum designed for interdisciplinary graduate students.
Presenting author's disclosure statement:Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have designed, implemented and evaluated public health student programming for over 10 years. I have also partnered with the office of practice at Mailman to provide learning opportunities and practicum sites for students - this I have done for over 5 years.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines,
and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed
in my presentation.
