Researching Benefits of a GPH Center

Presenter: Maggie Nguyen, Public Health Science, Global Public Health Scholars

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For my practicum project, I did a research opportunity with the School of Public Health and Global Health Initiative. The goal of the project I worked on was to develop a grant proposal in order to fund the creation of a Global Health Center at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). My role in this project was to do research on the Global Health Centers of the Big 10 Universities and study what each Global Health Center is doing--extracurriculars, number of faculty, number of students involved--and what works for them. The research was remote, and I compiled data into a document for the rest of the team to use in the proposal. Most of the information I researched serves to show what our school's competitors are doing that we aren't, appealing to idea that we need a Global Health Center in order to compete well against the other Big 10 schools. The Global Health Initiative aims to expand beyond just an initiative in order to make greater changes and work more in depth on Global Public Health issues. I have learned a tremendous amount from this experience, especially that UMD has a very wide sector for Public Health. I also learned about the gap between a Global Health Center vs. Initiative. Overall, a Global Health Center would benefit College Park, Maryland by providing a better infrastructure for our university to aid in health disparities in equity.