Education | 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, trans-university, 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.

When Rebecca A. Dillingham, MD, MPH, assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, became the CGH’s second director in 2012, she focused on raising its profile on Grounds and cultivating partnerships with faculty across disciplinary boundaries. These efforts support the Center’s focus on developing opportunities for collaborative global health learning, research, and service that are integrated horizontally across disciplines as well as vertically, connecting undergraduate, graduate, professional, and post-doctoral students with faculty and community partners worldwide.

The Center’s signature programs include:

• CGH Student-Scholars: CGH annually sponsors more than 25 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. Recent examples include a study of micro-health insurance in rural Tanzania, and an evaluation of a novel technology to diagnose tuberculosis meningitis.

• 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. Many of these fellows have received support from the Pfizer Initiative in International Health (PIIH), under the direction of W. Michael Scheld, MD. Currently, the Fogarty International Center at NIH is supporting the Water and Health in Limpopo (WHIL) Innovations Fellowship, which recruits post-doctoral fellows from across the U.S. and from the CGH’s partner site at the University of Venda, South Africa, to focus on improving access to safe water. Current fellows include a chemist, a microbiologist, an architect, and an anthropologist. Over 100 international fellows have been trained at CGH, with a remarkable 100% returning to their home countries – including Brazil and Peru, China and the Philippines, and Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. Often, fellows form research alliances with UVA faculty that continue long after they have returned home – and that result in shared discoveries, patents, grants, and publications (more than 250 to date).

• Interdisciplinary collaborations: 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 Drs. David Burt and Max Luna; the Global Surgery Initiative in Rwanda, led by Dr. Forrest Calland; the UVA-Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) Research Collaboration in Uganda, led by Dr. Christopher Moore); and the UVA-University of Venda Collaboration in South Africa, led by Dr. Rebecca Dillingham. 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 Global Health on Grounds (GHoG). 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.