Course description
Global Health Delivery
Earn an official certificate of professional achievement from Harvard University.
The greatest challenge to effectively managing and improving healthcare delivery isn’t availability, but access. Join a global health community in this online short course from Harvard's Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning (VPAL), in association with HarvardX, as you analyze the influence that power and social structures have in shaping disease response. Through real-world case studies, you’ll investigate international approaches to fighting Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and MDR-TB, and understand the burden of mental health. You’ll evaluate how ideologies, problem framing, and the choice of metrics shape health policy.
With guidance from expert university faculty, you’ll design your own global health intervention for actual implementation across public and private settings. Over the course of 10 weeks online, this program will also equip you with the managerial and soft skills to complement your medical knowledge, and you’ll ultimately leave with a premier certificate from Harvard’s VPAL, in association with HarvardX.
Suitability - Who should attend?
Is this course for you?
This online short course is for anyone with a passion for healthcare innovation who is looking for solutions to better serve their communities. This includes professional clinicians and public health practitioners as well as established global health leaders such as advisors, policymakers, and government officials. This program would also be relevant for investors and donors of global health initiatives, or those working in a multilateral organization, bilateral agency, NPO, or NGO.
Outcome / Qualification etc.
Study global health delivery across public and private contexts and earn an official premier certificate from Harvard’s Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning (VPAL), in association with HarvardX.
Assessment is continuous and based on a series of practical assignments completed online. In order to be issued with a certificate, you’ll need to meet the requirements outlined in the course handbook. The handbook will be made available to you as soon as you begin the course.
What will set you apart
On completion of this course, you’ll walk away with:
- An action plan to implement health interventions in your particular context.
- A biosocial framework to assess how biological and social factors influence the spread of disease.
- An understanding of the restrictions and challenges facing healthcare delivery.
- Unlimited access to 2U’s Career Engagement Network, offering you exclusive resources and events to support your professional journey and drive your career forward.
Training Course Content
Explore the possibilities and constraints of healthcare delivery as you work through the weekly modules of this online short course.
Module 1
Introduction to the biosocial
Module 2
Why ideas matter: Social theory in global health
Module 3
The history of global health and colonial legacy
Module 4
Political economy and foreign aid
Module 5
The global AIDS movement
Module 6
Challenges in healthcare delivery: Lessons from Liberia and Haiti
Module 7
Building an effective rural health delivery model in Rwanda
Module 8
Critical perspectives on metrics of disease
Module 9
The unique challenges of mental health
Module 10
Values and global health
Course delivery details
Duration
- 10 weeks Excluding orientation
- 8–10 hours per week Self-paced learning online