School of Public Health

Expanding horizons for global change

January 23, 2015 • Uncategorized

How can the study of issues like climate change, immigration, epidemics, social injustice, infectious disease migration, international health, the environment and relations across borders help change the world?

Beginning this spring – through a new Global Health Certificate program at UNT Health Science Center – students will have opportunity to explore those very questions.

This new program, offered through the UNTHSC School of Public Health (SPH), is the first of its kind in Dallas/Fort Worth and is fast catching on at other universities around the country, as a global approach becomes the focus for finding world health solutions.

“If you look at local communities and then expand outward across the U.S. and to other countries, many of the issues remain the same,” said Witold Migala, PhD, MPH, Biostatistics and Epidemiology Program Director/Assistant Professor, who created this new program. “We are all so interconnected now. It’s important to consider population health from a world view, because we are affected by not only what happens locally, but what happens globally.”

The new UNTHSC Global Health Certificate program launches March 16, with classes covering topics like biological and infectious diseases, shared diseases among humans and animals, epidemiology, Texas border health, health disparities, air pollution and health, food quality and safety, global to regional perspectives on water and public health. Additional upcoming courses are planned for the political economy of health, veterinary and zoonotic health and more. The program will study industrialized as well as developing or underdeveloped countries.

“The certificate program is an excellent way for public health professionals already working in the field to expand their knowledge and credentials, and can be an important add-on for students currently working on medical degrees and/or graduate programs in the health professions, public health and other related areas,” said SPH Dean Richard S. Kurz, PhD.

The program can be accomplished in 15 credit hours and can be completed entirely online, or as a combination of in class and online.

For more information, visit the UNTHSC School of Public website.