Enhancing an International Perspective in Public Health Teaching through Formalized University Partnerships
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Date
2017-03
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Frontiers in Public Health
Abstract
Teaching in the field of public health needs to employ a global perspective to account
for the fact that public health problems and solutions have global determinants
and implications as well. International university partnerships can promote such a
perspective through the strengthening of cooperation, exchange, and communication
between academic institutions across national boundaries. As an example for such an
academic network in the field of public health, we introduce the International Public
Health Partnership—a collaboration between a university in Germany and universities
in India, Turkey, and Nigeria. Formed in 2005, it facilitated the exchange of information,
fostered discussion about the transferability of public health concepts, contributed to
the structural development of the universities involved, and promoted an intercultural
dialog through a combination of local and distance learning activities. Although well
accepted by students and staff, different obstacles were encountered; these included
limited external funding, scarce own financial, time and personnel resources, and
diverging regulations and structures of degree programs at the partnership sites. In the
present article, we share several lessons that we learned during our joint collaboration
and provide recommendations for other universities that are involved in partnerships
with institutions of higher education or are interested to initiate such collaborations.
Description
Keywords
International Public Health, university partnership, developing countries, virtual classroom, collaboration
Citation
Thankappan KR, Brzoska P, Akgun S, Antia BE, Nayar KR, Razum O. Enhancing an International Perspective in Public Health Teaching through Formalized University Partnerships. Frontiers in Public Health. 2017