Center for Global Health
UVA’s Center for Global Health trained its first cohort of students, above, under a grant from the NIH’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (the Minority International Research Training grant program) during summer 2015.
Division of Infectious Diseases & International Health
CENTER FOR GLOBAL HEALTH
The Center for Global Health (CGH), founded in 2001 by Richard L. Guerrant, MD, has a long track record of fostering international, transuniversity and collaborative research on crucial issues of human health. The center strives to promote health in resource-limited settings by fostering the commitment of students, faculty and partners from many disciplines to address the diseases of poverty. It recognizes that finding the most creative and sustainable solutions to difficult issues — like eliminating water-borne disease — requires insights and ideas from many disciplines.
By providing a focal point for research related to global health — and by acting as an incubator for creative partnerships and initiatives in this area — CGH is helping to realize one of UVA’s key strategic long-term goals: increasing opportunities for students and faculty to participate in engaged education, research and service that has local and global implications. CGH’s focus on improving health bridges UVA’s Academical Village and global villages, near and far. CGH connects undergraduate, graduate, professional and postdoctoral students with faculty and community partners worldwide.
The center’s signature programs include:
UVA Center for Global Health staff, including director Rebecca Dillingham, MD (far left), and founding director Richard Guerrant, MD, center.
CGH Student-Scholars
CGH annually sponsors UVA undergraduate, graduate and professional students in mentored global health research projects in Africa, Latin America and Asia, as well as in underserved areas in the U.S. In consultation with faculty mentors, students develop projects that focus on improving the health of those in greatest need. The center typically supports about 60 students, on projects that range from asthma education for community health workers in rural South Africa to developing improved methods for hospital waste management in Nicaragua. In 2015, the center was able to increase the number of scholarships it offers to students from underrepresented minority groups, and facilitate their participation in international global health research, through a grant that was awarded in 2014 by the National Institutes of Health Minority Health International Research Training program.
CGH International Fellows
The center also provides educational opportunities for promising researchers and/or clinicians from its many collaborative sites abroad. Nominated by our partner institutions, these fellows receive support to come to UVA for training and research with faculty mentors. Currently, the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health provides support for the Water and Health in Limpopo (WHIL) Innovations Fellowship, which recruits postdoctoral fellows to focus on improving access to safe water; current fellows include an architect, an anthropologist, a psychologist, a nutritionist, a geneticist and a civil engineer. The center receives additional support from the Fogarty Center to fund the UVA-UNIVEN Global Infectious Disease Research Training program; four predoctoral fellows from UNIVEN came to UVA in 2015 as part of this program.
Interdisciplinary Collaborations
2014 Global Health Symposium: UVA students (l-r) Minahil Amin, Christopher Cai, and Alexis Chaet; on the right, CGH director Rebecca Dillingham speaks with Claire Williams and Claire Constance. All students serve on the CGH Student Advisory Board; Chris, Alexis and Claire Constance are also 2014 CGH Scholars.
The CGH fosters collaborations in the University community and with partners around the world on research and scholarship related to global health. Priority international collaborations include the UVA-Guatemala Initiative, led by David Burt, MD, and Max Luna, MD; the Global Surgery Initiative in Rwanda, led by Forrest Calland, MD; the UVA-Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) Research Collaboration in Uganda, led by Christopher Moore, MD; and the UVA-University of Venda Collaboration in South Africa, led by Rebecca Dillingham, MD, MPH. These sites host dozens of UVA students and faculty members each year for research collaborations, and serve as international rotation sites for medical students and residents in the School of Medicine’s Global Health Leadership Track. Key University partners include the Schools of Nursing, Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the College of Arts and Sciences. In addition, the CGH works closely with many UVA organizations and programs, including Open Grounds, the Center for Undergraduate Excellence, the Carter G. Woodson Institute, the Pfizer Initiative in International Health, and the Medical Alumni Association.
Global Health on Grounds (GHoG)
To make global health issues more visible and relevant to everyone in the UVA community, CGH has developed the Global Health on Grounds (GHoG) initiative. GHoG sponsors formal and informal opportunities to engage with global and local issues related to health and well-being. GHoG activities include a speaker series, the annual UVA Global Health Case Competition and the Center for Global Health Symposium. The CGH also partners with student groups on Grounds to promote student-led events relevant to global health; in September 2014, the Center sponsored its first Global Health Week, which is now an annual event.