Hoping to bring new global health content to light, the Duke Global Health Institute and Peking University will offer a two-week Duke-PKU Global Health Diploma program starting in July. With support from the Ministry of Education of China, the program will be taught jointly by Duke and PKU professors and conducted at PKU's campus in Bejing, China.
"We are really excited because to our knowledge it is the first introduction of global health into China," DGHI Director Michael Merson said. "It is also part of Duke extending itself as an international university and learning and sharing experiences with other universities abroad."
The Duke-PKU Global Health Diploma is the first global health diploma that Duke is developing abroad with another institution, said Lisa Croucher, assistant director for education and training for DGHI.
During the program, students will take four intensive courses that will each be equivalent to one-half course at Duke, Merson said. Following the program, students will have one month to write a research paper focusing on a particular topic in their field of study.
The topics for the classes will include introduction to global health issues, comparative structure and finance in health systems, health promotion and global health ethics. The first class of the program will comprise 30 students, all of whom will be from China and initially from PKU and 20 other public health schools, Merson said.
The program will also have broader governmental applications, Croucher added.
"There is a long-standing relationship between PKU and Duke and this diploma will build on it," Croucher said. "It will not only offer new content in global health for their masters of public health students, but also for policy makers and ministry of health officials in China."
Merson said the diploma program is part of a larger collaboration between Duke and PKU in which Duke is helping the University improve its approach to health care.
Four Duke faculty, Kathryn Whetten, Don Taylor, Sumi Ariely and Gary Bennett, will be co-teaching the courses. Whetten-who was at the forefront of developing the diploma--also primarily devised the Global Health Certificate, the curriculum on which the diploma is modeled, Croucher said.
"This is sort of our long-range plan," Croucher said. "Being able to bring global health content to light at other international institutions that we have partnerships with and working with faculty at those sites to develop a curriculum that is customized for their particular context."
Taylor, who will be teaching the course on comparative structure and finance in health systems, said he will focus on the organization of health care systems of high-income countries and then work with PKU faculty to illustrate how certain practices might apply to China.
Merson added that DGHI is thinking about launching a similar program with the Public Health Foundation of India, but wants to first learn from the diploma program in China before beginning anything new.
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