Global Research, Education, Action and Communities for Health — Global REACH — creates pathways for people from all communities to study and work in global health. Global REACH teaches, mentors and financially supports students, trainees and early career investigators from diverse backgrounds.
Global REACH connects several initiatives to create a pathway from high school to early career, with mentorship and support at each step. The pathway begins in UCSF’s San Francisco Bay Area community, with education programs for high school students and teachers to introduce young audiences to global health. The pathway continues with undergraduate, graduate, and professional education across the University of California and extends to postdoctoral and early career research at the UCs and around the world.
IGHS initiatives for high school students and teachers
Summer Researchers in Global Health
Summer Researchers in Global Health is a six-week summer internship for rising high school seniors in the Bay Area. It introduces students to global health concepts and immerses them in challenging, real-life research projects mentored by global health experts at UCSF.
UC initiatives for undergraduate, graduate and professional education
Online global health courses
A suite of online global health courses is available to all University of California undergraduate students and teaches the fundamental concepts and complex issues of global health. It aims to connect and inspire students across the UCs to explore and contribute to the discipline.
Global research fellowships
The GloCal Health Fellowship Program, funded by the NIH Fogarty International Center with administrative support from UCGHI, provides year-long mentored research experiences with 20 international partners. The program exclusively covers UC doctoral and professional students, postdoctoral fellows, and postdoctoral fellows from international partner sites.
Background
The field of global health suffers from a lack of diversity and faces an existential crisis of continued colonial reach from high-income countries into low- and middle-income countries. The movement to “decolonize global health” is at the forefront of redefining this field.
“Historically, global health has been mainly a top-down, North-to-South enterprise led primarily by white, elite men. What we are now seeing is an attempt to ensure that people and communities previously underrepresented in agenda-setting, discussions, and decisions have a voice at the table, are present at meetings, and can determine what is needed in their specific contexts.”
Bertram, K., Erondu, N., Pai, M. Silenced Voices in Global Health. Think Global Health, June 3, 2020
IGHS is embracing the challenge to decolonize global health and break down systemic discrimination internally, locally and globally by developing programs that support the next generation of global health leaders as they grow in their careers.