Certificate in Global Health at University of Wisconsin Madison

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 course work 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 locations health, history, politics, culture, and environment into ones learning experiences.
• To practice directed self-assessment and reflection about ones experiences and chosen profession, including consideration of ones 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.

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)