Global health research has often emphasized infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria but we are in a transition as we continue to make gains in reducing deaths from deadly communicable diseases like HIV/AIDs. Led by John Schneider, one of the 1st global health scholars nurtured by CGH, the Center for HIV Elimination (CCHE) seeks to eliminate new HIV transmission events over the next 30 years by using network science to target and integrate prevention as well as create structural and community-specific interventions (hivelimination.uchicago.edu). However, diseases of poverty persists among women and children who suffer and die needlessly during childbirth or from Neglected Tropical Diseases such as Toxoplasmosis and diarrheal illnesses due to poor access to clean water, good nutrition, safe housing and affordable health care. While deaths from HIV/AIDs continue to decrease, giving rise to improved life expectancy and people living longer, we now have to deal with the emerging epidemic of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCD) and injuries that contribute to more than half of deaths in low to middle income countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that deaths from cancer will rise by 2030 from approximately 8 million individuals/year to more than 13 million/year. Most of the increases in NCD diagnoses including diabetes, hypertension, strokes, depression and cancer will occur in economically disadvantaged low- to middle-income countries (LMIC) that are least able to detect and manage complications of NCD. Hence, the focus of our global health program is to integrate biologic and social determinants of health to improve health and wellness and prevent economically devastating chronic diseases in LMIC.

Mission:

1. Collaborate with communities in low resource settings in the US and abroad to promote health and wellness.

2. Create and disseminate new knowledge.

3. Increase service-learning opportunities.

4. Advance novel, transdisciplinary, and sustainable solutions to transform global health.

Goals:

Education. Facilitate the development and implementation of curriculum and interdisciplinary training programs relevant to global health at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels, including the recruitment and retention of outstanding professors to prepare students and trainees as leaders in global health and development practice.

Research and Scholarship. Create and support new interdisciplinary relationships and collaborations across UChicago that address complex challenges to human well-being, such as those identified in the UN Sustainable Development Agenda.

Collaboration. Build partnerships within The University of Chicago. These partnerships increase institutional awareness of, and commitment to, global health scholarship. CGH works to promote South-South partnership aligned with the global strategic initiatives of the University. In addition to furthering research collaboration, CIGH partners with UC Global and University Centers in Beijing, India, Hong Kong, Paris to anchorExchange programs the College.

Outreach. Establish mutually beneficial relationships with selected communities and institutions in the U.S. and around the world so as to engage in sustained partnerships that support biomedical research, public health and development practice, education, health systems reform, and health care.

An important component of research education in global health involves international fieldwork with an emphasis on sites offering the greatest opportunities to make an impact. Learning from partners in resource-limited settings can spur innovation to improve health care processes in the U.S., especially in our low-resourced communities in Chicago. However, the multiple international affiliations of our faculty also facilitate a variety of training and business activities for creating jobs and sustainable development on the Southside of Chicago and worldwide. These connections provide infrastructure for the education, training, and research activity of global health scholars and their students, thus amplifying the impact of a University of Chicago education.

CIGH helps partner institutions to build a robust infrastructure and subspecialty training programs, including a stable teaching faculty to train future global health leaders. In turn, the long-term training partnerships form the basis for collaborative research with global impact. Multi-disciplinary global health research and scholarship at UChicago can potentiate a wide range of promising research trajectories. The newly developed Institute for Data Science is the incubator for new multidisciplinary data science and artificial intelligence research at UChicago which creates an opportunity to develop innovative solutions that create good jobs to strengthen low resource communities. Data Science can catalyze new discoveries by fusing fundamental and applied research with real-world applications to improve health and wellness for vulnerable populations in Sub-Saharan Africa and other low resource countries. CIGH is currently engaging leaders from industry, government, and academia in Sub-Saharan Africa to develop networks to spark new collaborations and technological discoveries. Areas of emphasis include but are not limited to:

1. Climate Change, Health, and Vulnerable Populations:

Individual well-being is increasingly affected by the harmful impacts of natural, social, physical, chemical, and biological factors. Environmental health impacts are especially severe on the bottom billion population residing in the poorest of nations; individuals earning a dollar a day. Poverty-related causes of morbidity and mortality are just beginning to be recognized. Environmental drivers not only affect the health of individuals directly, but may also erode the social and institutional fabric of communities and undercut sustainable development, thus contributing to a vicious cycle of poverty and deprivation.

2. Urban Health Services and Systems Delivery

Multidisciplinary teams from Chicago, including student research fellows, are working with universities in Ibadan, Lagos, Kumasi, Cape Town, Bogota, Sao Paulo, Salvador Bahia Wuhan, and others. They also collaborate with non-governmental organizations such as the AORTIC, Project Gaia, HLF, FASUL and with urban medical centers.

3. Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases

While deaths from HIV/AIDs continue to decrease, giving rise to improved life expectancy, we now have to deal with the emerging epidemic of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCD) and injuries that contribute to more than half of deaths in low to middle income countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that deaths from cancer will rise by 2030 from approximately 8 million individuals/year to more than 13 million/year. Most of the increases in NCD diagnoses including diabetes, hypertension, strokes, depression and cancer will occur in economically disadvantaged low- to middle-income countries (LMIC) that are least able to detect and manage complications of NCD. Hence, the focus of our global health program is to integrate biologic and social determinants of health to improve health and wellness and prevent economically devastating chronic diseases in LMIC.

Faculty mentors list ongoing projects in the catalogue and students are asked to identify a primary mentor in the US with existing partnerships in LMIC and research preceptors that will constitute a multidisciplinary mentoring committee for the. student's global health summer research fellowship from our robust list of faculty mentors. In addition, students are encouraged to request support from a biostatistics staff from our Biostat Lab to assist with their project, so that multiple disciplines are represented for optimal mentoring of the student. The primary preceptor will be the main source of help in development of the scientific agenda, and it is expected that the primary preceptor will meet with the student regularly (at least once a week) and will consider not only the specific research proposal, but also other aspects of the mentees career development. The specific requirements for a primary research experience preceptor are:

(1)An extramurally funded research grant, preferably K or R01 type funding or foundation funding > $150,000. In light of this training grant being for medical students, we allow preceptors with a robust clinical trial portfolio to serve as a preceptor.

(2)Evidence of sufficient productivity in basic, translational, clinical or population research to provide appropriate advice to the trainee.

(3)An unequivocal commitment on the part of the preceptor to provide time and effort to accomplish sufficient mentorship to optimize the potential for success of the trainee.

A group of 2 to 3 competitive students, made up of undergraduate and graduate students, will be selected for each of the Fellowship sites. Working as a team, guided by a University of Chicago mentor and a site-based mentor, scholars will learn the nuances of research design, implementation, analysis, and presentation of final products including oral presentation formats, abstract development, and formal academic writing. The mentor-mentee relationship, as well as peer-to-peer mentorship, is foundational to the Summer research fellowship. A mentor can act as a sounding board, putting situations in perspective, offering feedback, and identifying activities you can engage in or ways you can position your work to meet your goals, as well as resources that may be helpful to you. The mentee should take the initiative in establishing the mentor-mentee relationship, through which the mentee can be accountable in delivering project goals, and the mentor is able to offer constructive criticism.

R or Python, Excel, Data Camp, GitHub (all provided by lab)

Stata