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Health and Community
Intro Page Curriculum
ITINERARIES*
Spring 2009 #1: Switzerland, India, China, South Africa
NEW! Spring 2009 #2: United States, Tanzania, Vietnam
Spring 2010 #1: Switzerland, India, China, South Africa
Spring 2010 #2: United States, Tanzania, Vietnam
Spring 2009 Itinerary #1
Switzerland India China South Africa
Switzerland (1 week)
Begin in Geneva, the headquarters of WHO and vast numbers of inter-governmental and non-governmental agencies. How do those who hold vast resources and organizational power define health disparities and the meaning of public health action in the world today? Observe, listen, interact: What does a representative of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) say about how trade policies and intellectual property laws affect access to medicine? What are the global health strategies at the forefront of the WHO agenda and why? How does UNAIDS partner with other agencies to fight the epidemic? What does all of this have to do with national health agendas, politics, and grassroots activism? By starting out in Geneva, Health and Community sets the stage to understand and challenge how global health power brokers and policy-makers shape and are shaped by what happens “on the ground” in each country we visit.
Back to top
India (5 weeks)
India, while still referred to as “backward” by some, is a burgeoning economy and world power, with a population that will soon surpass that of China. How does this dichotomous characterization “look” within the communities of one city (Bangalore) and one village just hours away? IHP students will gain insights into the separate but merging identities and lifestyles of rural and urban, rich and poor Indians and global and local corporate and government policy-makers. In India we are hosted by a local environmental NGO, which allows IHP students to closely examine the role of the environment on health through the lens of one basic human need: water. Who controls it? What happens when communities lose it? What are water-borne illnesses and who are most affected? Environment, food access, and nutrition are major foci of the India program. In addition, students will interact with practitioners of traditional Aryuvedic medicine and consider its cultural foundations as they differ from those of biomedicine. India’s investment in public health infrastructure is rapidly expanding. IHP students will visit a range of community-level and district-level health facilities and examine how such a large and diverse nation addresses the double burden of its infectious disease epidemics and burgeoning chronic disease prevalence, as its population both grows and ages. The theme of gender and health is introduced in India and students are challenged to consider its significance throughout their ‘Health and Community’ experience.At the end of the India program, there is a one week vacation before departing to China.
Back to top
China (5 weeks)
With 1.2 billion people, China is our planet’s most populous country (until India surpasses it in 20 years). It shares with India the challenge of unprecedented population growth, environmental degradation in the face of rapid economic development, and a rich, complex cultural landscape, yet their political history and governmental structure contrast sharply. For example, the interplay between national, intergovernmental, and non-governmental agencies in implementing public health programs in China is different than in India (and South Africa), which allows IHP students to analyze the powerful role of political structures in determining health policy. Occurring in China in particular are new fusions of the most ancient health traditions and biomedical technologies, unprecedented economic reform and lagging social policies, and a public health system that is trying to recover from its dismantling in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Our stay in Beijing is based at the China Academy of Chinese Medicinal Science, the nation’s most acclaimed center for research, clinical science, and education in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). IHP students get a firsthand glimpse into how (TCM) defines and manages health and wellness, and the surprising ways that the cultures of TCM and biomedicine are meshed. Chinese solutions to air pollution and related illness, overpopulation and women’s reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS are focal points of this program.
Back to top
South Africa (5 weeks)
South Africa, with its particular history of apartheid, brings into sharp focus the role of race in determining health. IHP students’ stay in this country prompts us to reflect on how social and health inequities are manifest in India, China, and in our own country(ies) as compared to South Africa. Homestays in a small community in Cape Town and in a rural black township allow students to see and experience firsthand how recent change in political structure affects health and community life—in profoundly positive ways as grassroots health activism is burgeoning and in equally disturbing ways, as deep disparities in health persist. The urgency of the HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics is nowhere more visible, and we hear and interact with many community activists, physicians, public health practitioners and officials as they seek to understand how and why the HIV/AIDS epidemic has ravaged communities in South Africa. Farmland, pesticides and health will be the environmental focus of the program, and students will be challenged to understand domestic and political violence in the context of the country’s social relations. It is in the context of multiple public health “crises” that IHP students will probe the promise of community activism as a transforming influence in the lives of all people.
IHP concludes with a three day retreat in a serene setting in the beautiful hills outside of Cape Town. Students will synthesize their academic work, personal journeys and the challenges of re-entry. It is a celebration and culmination of learning and our community life.
Back to top
Spring 2009 Itinerary #2
United States Tanzania Vietnam
Washington, DC (2 weeks)
The program begins with an orientation in Washington, DC, a city of stark contrasts and amazing diversity, where global health initiatives take shape in the shadow of extreme domestic racial and economic inequalities.
In conversations with health experts and community activists, students will explore public policy through the lens of those who create it, those who advocate its change, and those who feel its wide-ranging effects. Issues such as the devastating impacts of HIV/AIDS on DC neighborhoods, black infant mortality, and poor nutrition, will serve as jumping-off points for exploring much broader domestic policy issues, such as immigration and health, the US health care system, broad-reaching health disparities, food security, and the intersection of gender, race, politics and health.
We will also take advantage of DC as the home base for major players in the global health scene. Students will hear first-hand from expert academics, donor agency representatives, powerful decision-makers, such as USAID, PEPFAR, and large international development contractors like DAI. We will engage in dialogue with these stakeholders about how local community activism and multilateral power brokers can come into conflict or join in partnership to make a difference in community health throughout the world. Everyone will come away with a better understanding of domestic health issues in the United States, and of this nation’s role in shaping global health policy abroad. This knowledge will be valuable as we explore similar health issues and observe the impact of those policies in Tanzania and Vietnam.
Tanzania (5 weeks)
Tanzania is one of Africa’s most interesting contexts in which to think about the relationships between health and community. It is a diverse and vibrant country at the center of the many social, economic and political changes unfolding in East Africa. It is struggling, however, to transition from its troubled brand of “African socialism” to become part of an increasingly market-driven, globalizing world beyond its borders.
Their time in Ifakara will allow students to explore the HIV/AIDS epidemic in a new and very different context, witness some of the rural effects of urbanization and urban migration (including food insecurity), and think about how Tanzania’s fragile public health system copes with both hard-to-reach rural communities as well as the burden of the thousands of Rwandan and Burundian refugees who live along its western border. Students will also explore some of the tensions between biomedicine and traditional forms of healing by meeting with traditional healers who partner with the local hospital and engaging with some of the patients who shuttle back and forth between these different healing traditions. The program will conclude with a final week back in Dar Es Salaam where students will reflect on their experiences of health and illness in rural and urban contexts, and prepare for their transition to Vietnam. Before their trip across the Indian Ocean, however, students will have a one-week vacation to explore this part of East Africa in greater depth.
In Tanzania, students will be hosted by Dr. Peter Risha, a public health professional with many years of experience working in public health in Tanzania and abroad. He and his team will introduce students to the rapidly changing city of Dar es Salaam, a coastal city which has a deep and fascinating cosmopolitan history as one of the key ports in the vibrant Indian Ocean trading network. This history of cultural diversity and economic trade sets the stage for one of our main themes—migration and health. Just as it was 300 years ago, Dar es Salaam is today at the center of a fascinating range of global flows of people (aid workers, migrant workers, and missionaries), of ideas (about health and inequaity, sustainable development, and blended traditions), and of medical technologies (telemedicine from India, traditional herbal medicine from China and anti-retrovirals from the US).
During the first two weeks in Dar, students will meet with faculty from the Muhimbili School of Public Health, one of the most important hospitals and public health research centers in East Africa, as well as with a wide range of local NGOs, community workers and activists. They will speak with some of the foremost gender activists in the country about efforts to strengthen maternal and child health services. They will meet with community-based health workers, support group members and gay rights activists to discuss another key program theme—the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Tanzania and what is being done to provide treatment to a desperately poor and widely dispersed population. And they will engage with a range of international aid and development workers and government policymakers to discuss the challenges of coordinating the many governments, UN agencies, NGOs, and universities who are working to improve public health in Tanzania.
In the third week, students will board a train for a beautiful ride into the southern part of Tanzania, to the town of Ifakara. Though it lies on the main transport route to Zambia, Ifakara is far-flung rural town that few casual travelers know about or manage to get to. It nonetheless has deep connections in the field of public health with Europe and the US. Through the longstanding involvement of the Swiss Tropical Institute, Catholic missionaries and, today, American aid agencies, Ifakara is the perfect place to explore both the complexities of rural health in an African context, but also the changing ways that outside experts have tried to respond to these unique challenges over many decades.Vietnam (8 weeks)
Vietnam is one of Southeast Asia’s most vibrant and rapidly developing countries. Its complicated history weaves together Chinese Confucianism, French colonialism, numerous 20th century wars (including the “American War”), and a failed socialist economic system. Now striving to combine a communist political system with a market-oriented economy, Vietnam’s leaders have set a course that has enabled the country to emerge as a dynamic East Asian “tiger.” Yet, considerable challenges remain. The most vexing health-related issues include an HIV/AIDS epidemic that threatens to become widespread, the enormous demands placed on health systems from rising rural-to-urban migration, widening inequalities, and worsening environmental conditions.
In Vietnam, students will be hosted by a non-governmental organization known as “Consultation of Investment in Health Promotion” (CIHP), a dynamic group formed by experienced public health experts that designs and implements a range of health and development programs, such as an on-line HIV/AIDS and sexuality counseling service for teens, and conducts research throughout the country. The Hanoi School of Public Health (HSPH), Vietnam’s premier public health institution -- known for its applied teaching approach utilizing an array of urban and rural field sites -- will serve as co-hosts. This combination will provide students a rare opportunity to study with Vietnam’s finest public health professionals and observe first-hand creative efforts to resolve some of the country’s most vexing problems through visits to project and field sites. A set of key themes provide focus for students’ Vietnam experience: the impact of rural-to-urban migration; the HIV/AIDS epidemic; and current family health, with respect to children, teens, and the elderly. As they delve into specific topics such as the lasting legacies of recent war (including the effects of Agent Orange), students will explore divergent views through guest lectures and panel discussions featuring government staff, NGOs, journalists, and other representatives of civil society.
The program begins with 4 weeks in Hanoi, the charming and rapidly modernizing political and cultural center of Vietnam. While in Hanoi, students will make excursions to Ha Long Bay, a Natural Heritage site, to mountainous areas north of Hanoi, and to several of the HSPH’s urban and rural field sites for in-depth study. They will also become intimately familiar with day to day life in Hanoi by living with local families through their homestays. Students will then travel by train across the country to the Mekong Delta, deep in Vietnam’s south, for a one-week stay in a colorful rural region of rivers, canals, fisheries, and fruit gardens. Here, students will be immersed in the reality of a rural world dominated by agriculture, able to feel for themselves the outward push toward a more urban life. We will act on that urge by traveling next to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC, formerly Saigon), a southern magnet where the allure of higher pay and a better life draw Vietnamese from every stratum. During a two-week stay in the heart of the city (again in local homestays), students will focus on the phenomenon of rapid migration into Vietnam’s cities, able to see close at hand the impacts of migration on health systems and the city’s efforts to cope with rapid growth while improving access to health services and the quality of life for its citizens.
The program concludes with a four-day retreat in the ancient capital of Hue, located midway between Hanoi and HCMC near the coast. Here, in a peaceful setting immersed in history, students will reflect on and discuss their experiences – academic and personal, as a group and as individuals. This will be a time to rejoice in the opportunity to share and learn together as a community.Back to top
Spring 2010 Itinerary #1
Switzerland India China South Africa
Switzerland (1 week)
Begin in Geneva, the headquarters of WHO and vast numbers of inter-governmental and non-governmental agencies. How do those who hold vast resources and organizational power define health disparities and the meaning of public health action in the world today? Observe, listen, interact: What does a representative of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) say about how trade policies and intellectual property laws affect access to medicine? What are the global health strategies at the forefront of the WHO agenda and why? How does UNAIDS partner with other agencies to fight the epidemic? What does all of this have to do with national health agendas, politics, and grassroots activism? By starting out in Geneva, Health and Community sets the stage to understand and challenge how global health power brokers and policy-makers shape and are shaped by what happens “on the ground” in each country we visit.
Back to top
India (5 weeks)
India, while still referred to as “backward” by some, is a burgeoning economy and world power, with a population that will soon surpass that of China. How does this dichotomous characterization “look” within the communities of one city (Bangalore) and one village just hours away? IHP students will gain insights into the separate but merging identities and lifestyles of rural and urban, rich and poor Indians and global and local corporate and government policy-makers. In India we are hosted by a local environmental NGO, which allows IHP students to closely examine the role of the environment on health through the lens of one basic human need: water. Who controls it? What happens when communities lose it? What are water-borne illnesses and who are most affected? Environment, food access, and nutrition are major foci of the India program. In addition, students will interact with practitioners of traditional Aryuvedic medicine and consider its cultural foundations as they differ from those of biomedicine. India’s investment in public health infrastructure is rapidly expanding. IHP students will visit a range of community-level and district-level health facilities and examine how such a large and diverse nation addresses the double burden of its infectious disease epidemics and burgeoning chronic disease prevalence, as its population both grows and ages. The theme of gender and health is introduced in India and students are challenged to consider its significance throughout their ‘Health and Community’ experience.At the end of the India program, there is a one week vacation before departing to China.
Back to top
China (5 weeks)
With 1.2 billion people, China is our planet’s most populous country (until India surpasses it in 20 years). It shares with India the challenge of unprecedented population growth, environmental degradation in the face of rapid economic development, and a rich, complex cultural landscape, yet their political history and governmental structure contrast sharply. For example, the interplay between national, intergovernmental, and non-governmental agencies in implementing public health programs in China is different than in India (and South Africa), which allows IHP students to analyze the powerful role of political structures in determining health policy. Occurring in China in particular are new fusions of the most ancient health traditions and biomedical technologies, unprecedented economic reform and lagging social policies, and a public health system that is trying to recover from its dismantling in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Our stay in Beijing is based at the China Academy of Chinese Medicinal Science, the nation’s most acclaimed center for research, clinical science, and education in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). IHP students get a firsthand glimpse into how (TCM) defines and manages health and wellness, and the surprising ways that the cultures of TCM and biomedicine are meshed. Chinese solutions to air pollution and related illness, overpopulation and women’s reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS are focal points of this program.
Back to top
South Africa (5 weeks)
South Africa, with its particular history of apartheid, brings into sharp focus the role of race in determining health. IHP students’ stay in this country prompts us to reflect on how social and health inequities are manifest in India, China, and in our own country(ies) as compared to South Africa. Homestays in a small community in Cape Town and in a rural black township allow students to see and experience firsthand how recent change in political structure affects health and community life—in profoundly positive ways as grassroots health activism is burgeoning and in equally disturbing ways, as deep disparities in health persist. The urgency of the HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics is nowhere more visible, and we hear and interact with many community activists, physicians, public health practitioners and officials as they seek to understand how and why the HIV/AIDS epidemic has ravaged communities in South Africa. Farmland, pesticides and health will be the environmental focus of the program, and students will be challenged to understand domestic and political violence in the context of the country’s social relations. It is in the context of multiple public health “crises” that IHP students will probe the promise of community activism as a transforming influence in the lives of all people.
IHP concludes with a three day retreat in a serene setting in the beautiful hills outside of Cape Town. Students will synthesize their academic work, personal journeys and the challenges of re-entry. It is a celebration and culmination of learning and our community life.
Back to top
Spring 2010 Itinerary #2
United States Tanzania Vietnam
Washington, DC (2 weeks)
The program begins with an orientation in Washington, DC, a city of stark contrasts and amazing diversity, where global health initiatives take shape in the shadow of extreme domestic racial and economic inequalities.
In conversations with health experts and community activists, students will explore public policy through the lens of those who create it, those who advocate its change, and those who feel its wide-ranging effects. Issues such as the devastating impacts of HIV/AIDS on DC neighborhoods, black infant mortality, and poor nutrition, will serve as jumping-off points for exploring much broader domestic policy issues, such as immigration and health, the US health care system, broad-reaching health disparities, food security, and the intersection of gender, race, politics and health.
We will also take advantage of DC as the home base for major players in the global health scene. Students will hear first-hand from expert academics, donor agency representatives, powerful decision-makers, such as USAID, PEPFAR, and large international development contractors like DAI. We will engage in dialogue with these stakeholders about how local community activism and multilateral power brokers can come into conflict or join in partnership to make a difference in community health throughout the world. Everyone will come away with a better understanding of domestic health issues in the United States, and of this nation’s role in shaping global health policy abroad. This knowledge will be valuable as we explore similar health issues and observe the impact of those policies in Tanzania and Vietnam.
Tanzania (5 weeks)
Tanzania is one of Africa’s most interesting contexts in which to think about the relationships between health and community. It is a diverse and vibrant country at the center of the many social, economic and political changes unfolding in East Africa. It is struggling, however, to transition from its troubled brand of “African socialism” to become part of an increasingly market-driven, globalizing world beyond its borders.
Their time in Ifakara will allow students to explore the HIV/AIDS epidemic in a new and very different context, witness some of the rural effects of urbanization and urban migration (including food insecurity), and think about how Tanzania’s fragile public health system copes with both hard-to-reach rural communities as well as the burden of the thousands of Rwandan and Burundian refugees who live along its western border. Students will also explore some of the tensions between biomedicine and traditional forms of healing by meeting with traditional healers who partner with the local hospital and engaging with some of the patients who shuttle back and forth between these different healing traditions. The program will conclude with a final week back in Dar Es Salaam where students will reflect on their experiences of health and illness in rural and urban contexts, and prepare for their transition to Vietnam. Before their trip across the Indian Ocean, however, students will have a one-week vacation to explore this part of East Africa in greater depth.
In Tanzania, students will be hosted by Dr. Peter Risha, a public health professional with many years of experience working in public health in Tanzania and abroad. He and his team will introduce students to the rapidly changing city of Dar es Salaam, a coastal city which has a deep and fascinating cosmopolitan history as one of the key ports in the vibrant Indian Ocean trading network. This history of cultural diversity and economic trade sets the stage for one of our main themes—migration and health. Just as it was 300 years ago, Dar es Salaam is today at the center of a fascinating range of global flows of people (aid workers, migrant workers, and missionaries), of ideas (about health and inequaity, sustainable development, and blended traditions), and of medical technologies (telemedicine from India, traditional herbal medicine from China and anti-retrovirals from the US).
During the first two weeks in Dar, students will meet with faculty from the Muhimbili School of Public Health, one of the most important hospitals and public health research centers in East Africa, as well as with a wide range of local NGOs, community workers and activists. They will speak with some of the foremost gender activists in the country about efforts to strengthen maternal and child health services. They will meet with community-based health workers, support group members and gay rights activists to discuss another key program theme—the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Tanzania and what is being done to provide treatment to a desperately poor and widely dispersed population. And they will engage with a range of international aid and development workers and government policymakers to discuss the challenges of coordinating the many governments, UN agencies, NGOs, and universities who are working to improve public health in Tanzania.
In the third week, students will board a train for a beautiful ride into the southern part of Tanzania, to the town of Ifakara. Though it lies on the main transport route to Zambia, Ifakara is far-flung rural town that few casual travelers know about or manage to get to. It nonetheless has deep connections in the field of public health with Europe and the US. Through the longstanding involvement of the Swiss Tropical Institute, Catholic missionaries and, today, American aid agencies, Ifakara is the perfect place to explore both the complexities of rural health in an African context, but also the changing ways that outside experts have tried to respond to these unique challenges over many decades.Vietnam (8 weeks)
Vietnam is one of Southeast Asia’s most vibrant and rapidly developing countries. Its complicated history weaves together Chinese Confucianism, French colonialism, numerous 20th century wars (including the “American War”), and a failed socialist economic system. Now striving to combine a communist political system with a market-oriented economy, Vietnam’s leaders have set a course that has enabled the country to emerge as a dynamic East Asian “tiger.” Yet, considerable challenges remain. The most vexing health-related issues include an HIV/AIDS epidemic that threatens to become widespread, the enormous demands placed on health systems from rising rural-to-urban migration, widening inequalities, and worsening environmental conditions.
In Vietnam, students will be hosted by a non-governmental organization known as “Consultation of Investment in Health Promotion” (CIHP), a dynamic group formed by experienced public health experts that designs and implements a range of health and development programs, such as an on-line HIV/AIDS and sexuality counseling service for teens, and conducts research throughout the country. The Hanoi School of Public Health (HSPH), Vietnam’s premier public health institution -- known for its applied teaching approach utilizing an array of urban and rural field sites -- will serve as co-hosts. This combination will provide students a rare opportunity to study with Vietnam’s finest public health professionals and observe first-hand creative efforts to resolve some of the country’s most vexing problems through visits to project and field sites. A set of key themes provide focus for students’ Vietnam experience: the impact of rural-to-urban migration; the HIV/AIDS epidemic; and current family health, with respect to children, teens, and the elderly. As they delve into specific topics such as the lasting legacies of recent war (including the effects of Agent Orange), students will explore divergent views through guest lectures and panel discussions featuring government staff, NGOs, journalists, and other representatives of civil society.
The program begins with 4 weeks in Hanoi, the charming and rapidly modernizing political and cultural center of Vietnam. While in Hanoi, students will make excursions to Ha Long Bay, a Natural Heritage site, to mountainous areas north of Hanoi, and to several of the HSPH’s urban and rural field sites for in-depth study. They will also become intimately familiar with day to day life in Hanoi by living with local families through their homestays. Students will then travel by train across the country to the Mekong Delta, deep in Vietnam’s south, for a one-week stay in a colorful rural region of rivers, canals, fisheries, and fruit gardens. Here, students will be immersed in the reality of a rural world dominated by agriculture, able to feel for themselves the outward push toward a more urban life. We will act on that urge by traveling next to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC, formerly Saigon), a southern magnet where the allure of higher pay and a better life draw Vietnamese from every stratum. During a two-week stay in the heart of the city (again in local homestays), students will focus on the phenomenon of rapid migration into Vietnam’s cities, able to see close at hand the impacts of migration on health systems and the city’s efforts to cope with rapid growth while improving access to health services and the quality of life for its citizens.
The program concludes with a four-day retreat in the ancient capital of Hue, located midway between Hanoi and HCMC near the coast. Here, in a peaceful setting immersed in history, students will reflect on and discuss their experiences – academic and personal, as a group and as individuals. This will be a time to rejoice in the opportunity to share and learn together as a community.Back to top
*Important Note: Please be advised that many logistical considerations must be taken into account when planning these itineraries. All IHP itineraries are subject to change. Please check back periodically to review the most up-to-date itinerary.
