Building foundations in global health education: Developing new training opportunities to promote global competencies

The need to provide new training to public health students to prepare them to interface with the public and colleagues in culturally competent ways, as well as to have familiarity with health challenges and diseases that may not be endemic to the United States, has become increasingly apparent.  Many future public health professionals and clinicians plan to work in international settings for some, if not all of their careers.  Furthermore, ever-increasing globalization means public health workforce members in the United States will interface frequently with those with diverse national, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and there is strong likelihood that they may end up partnering with collaborators abroad in ongoing initiatives or for mutually beneficial programming and idea exchanges.  In order to prepare future public health workers to serve the public in a variety of settings, be they domestic or international, new avenues for education must be forged with curricula that respond to these specific needs. Incorporating global health concepts into curricula better prepares students for global health challenges in their careers. Course offerings such as cultural competence, disease-specific electives, and courses in international settings augment students’ understanding of how social and cultural factors affect public health.   In such courses, students gain an advantage in their breadth of knowledge and experience, which will better prepare them for the realities of public health needs in a diversifying world.