Media contact: Hannah Echols
Students will have the opportunity to learn from experienced, diverse faculty with a range of international partners working in interdisciplinary, global health research and practice.
Photography: Lexi CoonThe University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health and Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine will launch a new joint master’s degree in global health. The new program will begin accepting applications this summer for the fall semester.
“Global health has always held ethical appeal, and as a field of research and practice, it strives to improve health equity,” said Meredith Gartin, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Organization and co-director of the Master of Science in Global Health program. “This program will put into practice an approach that centers on health equity as the main health issue under examination.”
Through a collaboration between the Sparkman Center for Global Health, the Mary Heersink Institute for Global Health, the Global Health Consortium, of which UAB is a member, and other international partners, graduates will be equipped for professional careers in global health through this innovative, multi-institutional program.
UAB is well-positioned to offer this innovative degree with more than 40 years of global health engagement experience and cross-disciplinary partnerships in over 40 countries. Through the Sparkman Center’s population health perspective and with clinical expertise from the MHIGH, students who complete this program will gain a more holistic grasp of the complex health issues that impact the world.
“Many global health academic programs identify inequities and unjust policies as the reasons for poor health, while the curricular focus for UAB’s MSGH is solution-driven health equity,” Gartin said. “I believe our students will graduate not only with the skills to examine global issues, but with the tools to solve them.”
Students will have the opportunity to learn from experienced, diverse faculty with a range of international partners working in interdisciplinary, global health research and practice on one of two study tracks: a 36-credit-hour scholarly project track or a 38-credit-hour thesis track. Two Foundations of Global Health courses will be co-administered with the other universities that fall within the Global Health Consortium, giving students the chance to collaborate with and learn alongside classmates from across the globe.
For more information on the Master of Science in Global Health program, click here.
“From start to finish, the blueprint of this degree is groundbreaking and collaborative,” said Matt Heimann, M.D., associate director of MHIGH and co-director of the MSGH program. “The degree will draw serious learners who desire to be immersed in a global experience from the first semester. A graduate with this degree should expect to be professionally prepared for a career in global health and have the connections and experience to succeed.”
The first degree of its kind to be offered by a university in Alabama, the MSGH program will narrate the study of global health through the lens of health equity, given the perspective of Birmingham’s history with the Civil Rights Movement. Students in this program will have a unique opportunity to examine the ways in which global issues relate locally, while remaining mindful of the work that lies ahead both in Birmingham and abroad. The degree was first inspired by an exhibit at the Civil Rights Institute in downtown Birmingham that showcases the challenges in health equity and injustice that many other countries face around the world.
In addition to health equity, the curriculum features courses on global health writing, ethics, research methods, public health, global surgery and more. The program will launch exclusively online, then will move to a hybrid format for those who are interested. A broad spectrum of elective courses will also be offered. Opportunities to network with international partners will be available through this program, both in Birmingham and through an annual invitation to attend a student symposium held at Manipal University in India.
The MSGH is the second degree collaboration to be established between the UAB School of Public Health and the UAB Heersink School of Medicine, the first being the dual M.D./MPH. Applications will open soon, and additional information can be found on the M.S.: Global Health page.