Abstract
Today, health has transcended national boundaries and become more multifaceted. Global health has evolved as a new paradigm and is recently being identified as a thrust area now in India. Despite an existing need for a standardized global health curriculum, there is little information available on its education and curriculum in medical and health education space. In the Indian context, we are yet to have a fuller picture of the current status, including, content, structure, selection, teaching methods of global health, and how students are evaluated in India. The objective of this study was to map courses relating to studies on global health in India and analyze its mode of delivery. A detailed Internet search was carried out to identify global health courses and analyzed for: (i) whether global health is a part of the teaching curriculum, (ii) mode of teaching, (iii) broad contents, (iv) instructional formats, (v) assessment, and (vi) selection process. It was found that delivery of global health education in India was fragmented with limited focus at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Global health teaching was largely based on certificate courses or online courses, with hardly any institutions imparting a distinct global health education program. There is also no definite specification as to which institutes can impart teaching on global health education and what the specific eligibility requirements are. Our analysis suggests that efforts should be directed toward integrating global health education into broader public health curriculum. At the same time, the need for generation of global health leaders, creation of a common forum for addressing merits and demerits of global health issues, as well as creation of more opportunities for placements are recognized.
Highlights
In recent years, the world has made rapid progress toward economic globalization, populations have become more multicultural and borders are being traversed
The global health courses being offered in India are shown in Tables 1 and 2
We see that global health education, as well as teaching, in India is currently at its nascent stage and is gradually growing
Summary
The world has made rapid progress toward economic globalization, populations have become more multicultural and borders are being traversed . Health issues have moved beyond communities and countries. The scope of population health has broadened to accommodate two of the new emerging domains of public health–international and global health. Public health is usually viewed as having a focus on the health of the population within a specific country or community (2). International and global health, though often used interchangeably, are different entities. International health differs from public health in focusing on health issues outside of one’s own country. In Koplan et al.’s view, international health caters to health issues, especially infectious diseases, and maternal and child health in low-income countries (2). On the other hand is not just limited to the location of problems, but focuses on the wider health determinants, and transnational health issues. Koplan et al proposed a working definition of global health as “an area or study, research, practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health among everyone worldwide” (2)
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