摘要：Global health is a dynamic, emerging, and interdisciplinary field. To address current and emerging global health challenges, we need a public health workforce with adaptable and collaborative problem-solving skills. In the 2013–2014 academic year, the Hubert Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health–Emory University launched an innovative required core course for its first-year Master of Public Health students in the global health track. The course uses a case-based, problem-based learning approach to develop global health competencies. Small teams of students propose solutions to these problems by identifying learning issues and critically analyzing and synthesizing new information. We describe the course structure and logistics used to apply this approach in the context of a large class and share lessons learned. Rapid globalization and unprecedented investment in global health research and programs over the past decade have generated demand for training in global health. 1 However, global health is a dynamic, emerging, and interdisciplinary field that presents challenges for curricular development. 2 The speed of technical, scientific, and programmatic developments in relation to HIV over the past decade 3 provides an example of just how quickly content delivered via traditional didactic modes of instruction risks becoming outdated. In a rapidly changing world, instruction needs to focus on nurturing the systems-level thinking that is central to understanding the complexity of current and emerging global health challenges. 4 It also needs to foster the critical thinking and respect for contextual specificity that are essential for effective and sustainable solutions. Although global health competencies have been proposed by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) to guide instruction, 5 less attention has been given to the pedagogical approaches best suited to helping students develop these competencies. In research conducted by the University of Washington to inform the design of its curriculum, global health leaders recommended that training should focus on experiential learning and employ case studies and problem-based course work. 6 Columbia University uses a case-based approach in components of its new curriculum (that seeks to bring together global and local health). 7 Emory University has run a successful Global Health Case Competition since 2009, inviting interdisciplinary teams of students to competitively seek feasible and sustainable solutions to real-life global health challenges 8 and has developed a case-based introductory course directed to nonglobal health Master of Public Health (MPH) students. 2 We argue that a case-based, problem-based approach is particularly well-suited to the development of a workforce with adaptable and collaborative problem-solving skills 9 that can address global health challenges, and we describe our approach in detail. The Hubert Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University has had an MPH track in global health since 1985. The demand for this program has grown over the past 12 years from 52 students enrolled in 2001 to 159 in 2013, and students in the global health tracks now represent 33% of all MPH students at Rollins. These students have an average of two years of global health experience. In addition, approximately 20% of the MPH student body at Rollins is from outside the United States with 27 different countries represented in the current cohort. Many of these international students are midcareer professionals with significant field experience. In the 2011–2012 academic year, the Rollins School of Public Health added a required core course in global health for non–Global Health Department students (GH500), to the traditional requirements of master’s-level public health training. 2 This course is competency-driven, interdisciplinary, case-based, and incorporates new interactive technologies. It aims to enable students to integrate core public health disciplines into team-based problem solving around authentic global health challenges. In the 2013–2014 academic year, we applied lessons learned from this experience in the development of a new core course for students in the Global Health Department, named Global Challenges and Opportunities (GH501). The subsequent sections detail our development and execution of GH501.
