How to optimize global health education for undergraduates: the value of a living-learning community and practical training at the university of Maryland, college park

: 1.011_HRW How to optimize global health education for undergraduates: the value of a living-learning community and practical training at the university of Maryland, college park P. Jacob Bueno de Mesquita, A. Bickford, B. Brown, A. Kurian, E. Claure, A. Silver, E. Maring; Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health, Department of Behavioral and Community Health, Public Health Science Program, Fischell Department of Bioengineering, Department of Biology, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Global Public Health Scholars Program, Office of Undergraduate Studies, University of Maryland, College Park Program Purpose: The University of Maryland’s Global Public Health Scholars Program (GPHS) is an interdisciplinary, 2-year, living-learning, training program that prepares annually about 140 first and second year undergraduate students for leadership and innovation in the global health workforce. The program’s pedagogy addresses key workforce skill gaps outlined in the joint report from the World Health Organization and the Global Health Workforce Alliance, A universal truth: No health without a workforce: shortage of global health care workers due to inadequate training of future workforce generations, lack of collaborative mechanisms, and need for improved quality of care including cultural sensitivity. Structure/Design: To address these gaps, GPHS builds a diverse cadre of global health trainees who are primed to contribute directly as global health-care workers, or through collaborative efforts within their own professional fields of engineering, nutrition, exercise science, community and family health, and others. Training includes rigorous and interdisciplinary global health coursework, colloquia, service learning, leadership opportunities, and practical experience. The GPHS living-learning community initiates daily collaborative problem solving. Coursework emphasizes diversity, care of the whole person, cultural competency, and ethics in service delivery. Students utilize innovative design thinking, including techniques to gain empathy with users of global health services, methods to identify key problems, and tools to support radical solution strategies. Students translate this training into a capstone with social impact conducted at the University and/or within the greater DC/Maryland/Virginia community. Outcome and Evaluation: GPHS activities and impact are continually evaluated. An annual report is circulated to deans of Public Health, Undergraduate Studies, and living-learning programs for review. GPHS aims to share aforementioned areas of success and to identify best practices from other global health programs. Coauthored by a team of GPHS undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty, the goals of this presentation are to: 1) share best practices from GPHS program’s pedagogy; 2) stimulate discussion about our conceptual model that synthesizes actions for the future of global health education; and 3) demonstrate how students and faculty on interdisciplinary teams confront global health questions with tiered skill levels and take steps to close global health workforce gaps.