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Proposal:
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The School of Public Health proposes to establish a Bachelor of Science in Global Health that will feature collaborative partnerships both within the School of Public Health and with several other UMD colleges and schools. Global health is a multidisciplinary field, encompassing not only health care systems, medical practices, and ideas about illness in cross-cultural contexts, but also contending with issues of health development, global health inequity, racism and other isms, as well as human rights issues.
Graduates of the program will be able to apply structurally competent, collaborative, and multidisciplinary perspectives to the understanding, assessment, and intervention of sustainable strategies that are necessary to address current and future global health issues. Specific outcomes include the ability to demonstrate critical thinking and basic research skills within the discipline of public health, including the ability to apply introductory statistical methodology and big data approaches to solve global health problems. Students will also employ effective communication skills across a wide range of collaborators and target audiences, and they will critically analyze the qualitative and quantitative impacts of racism on the prevention, assessment, and treatment of illness around the world.
The curriculum will consist of 77-83 credits, with foundational courses in nutrition, government and politics, world languages, and biological sciences that will allow students to acquire a strong knowledge base in supporting disciplines. Required Global Health core courses will consist of courses from public health, behavioral and community health, family science, environmental health, anthropology, epidemiology and biostatistics, health policy and management, as well as new courses devoted entirely to global health under a new course prefix, GBHL. The program will also require at least six credits of experiential learning, which will enable students to develop a deeper understanding of professional and personal responsibility as they explore various career pathways in global health. Career pathways include global health and related fields, such as medicine, public policy, scientific and applied research, allied health, and social service professions in the public, private, and non-profit employment sectors throughout the state, nation, and world.
Global health is identified in the university’s strategic plan as one of humanity’s grand challenges, and the program’s use of multidisciplinary learning, collaborative partnerships, and experiential learning to address this grand challenge also aligns with the strategic plan’s emphasis on reimagined learning. |
