Introduction to Global Health Practice introduces core global health concepts, principles and methods, and provides guidance for engagement in activities to promote global health. In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of global health, the book includes professional profiles, case studies, and guides for interactive learning so that students can discern their own values, understand what it means to be an agent for change in our interdependent world, and approach issues related to health and wellbeing from a global context.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I presents an overview of global health concepts, systems and principles. Part II provides and up-to-date summary of the global burden of disease, and includes a life-course perspective as well as an overview by geographic region. Part III, focusing on principles and skills for engagement, is practical in nature, with a focus on interactive learning and exercises. These materials can be used selectively depending on the goals and objectives of the course.
By providing a framework for understanding efforts to improve health and wellbeing, and engaging students in analysis and discernment, this book helps students explore global health related professions, and also prepares them for lifetime global citizenship.
This book distinguishes itself from other global health texts because of its focus on engagement, its human rights and social justice orientation, and a multi-sector approach that includes health care, but is not limited to it. Through exercises, readings and discussion guides it helps students to explore difficult questions related to global change, and it also offers a pathway to practice, whereby students can move through a step-by-step process to develop a plan for mutually enriching, respectful and ethical global health engagement.
