Teaching to transform global health: Promising models for competency development and assessment of learning

The Harvard School of Public Health has been carrying out an intensive review of global health education within its educational programs and around the world with the goal of formulating competency sets, curriculum frameworks, and new pedagogical approaches.

The first phase of this project (year one) has grappled with a number of questions including definitions of “global health” and their impact on educational design and processes that are needed to design robust competency-based curricula and assessment methods. The study was guided by the work of Frenk & Chen (2010) and the process was data-driven including analysis of data sources including hundreds of graduate student surveys and alumni placement records, a survey of 150 undergraduate students aspiring for careers in global public health, interviews with nearly 40 global health employers, and a comprehensive analysis of global health curriculum and competencies from across North America and around the world. The result, we now have a clearer picture of the relationship between schooling and work for prospective, current, and past students. Also, we have guidance from the labor market about the skills and experiences needed both to enter the profession, and advance towards leadership roles. We have also mapped the types of institutions that make up the global health education ecosystem.

The result is we have designed new competencies and more importantly for generalizability a promising strategies to guide design and implementation of competencies, curriculum and pedagogical approaches that foster stronger educational outcomes for SPHs in the Global North and Global South.