Global Health Updates

The Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine has many ongoing global health efforts and ways you can get involved:

• Office of Global Health. Tulane University has a university-wide Office of Global Health (OGH) founded in 2009 by former SPHTM Dean Pierre Buekens, and now led by Associate Dean for Global Health Richard Oberhelman. The Tulane Office of Global Health is a university-wide center, with representation from across Tulane University, including all of the schools and colleges: Newcomb-Tulane College, the School of Architecture, the A.B. Freeman School of Business, the School of Liberal Arts, the School of Medicine, the School of Professional Advancement, the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, the School of Science and Engineering, and the School of Social Work.
  

  

  The mission of the OGH is to foster interdisciplinary, collaborative research opportunities for faculty across Tulane University, and to promote global health research training opportunities for Tulane students. The OGH website has had a new makeover and new content is being added all the time thanks to Robert Palestina, who recently joined the OGH team as a global health program manager working with Associate Dean Oberhelman. Check out our website updates at ogh.tulane.edu/ and for more information contact Robert at rpalesti@tulane.edu or reach out to our new email at OfficeGlobalHealth@tulane.edu. 

• Tulane SPHTM global health faculty in the news. Some of our recent faculty accomplishments are described in the following stories:
  
  
  
  Office of Global Health reinvigorates by reconnecting to alumni
  
  
  
  Tulane research team examines the relationship between food insecurity and food assistance programs in Peru
  
  
  
  Tulane researcher helps alliance set COVID-19 priorities
  
  
  
  New grant targets family planning in DRC
  
  
  
  Tulane CAMRE part of a $30M global project to fight malaria

• Tulane co-hosted the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Universities of Global Health (CUGH). OGH and the Tulane were executive planning committee sponsors for the 2021 Annual Meeting of CUGH which took place March 12-14, 2021. This virtual meeting was a big success, with over 1900 registered participants. OGH sponsored a student research competition that funded conference registration for winners from the SPHTM and the School of Medicine. Tulane also had a major presence at the conference as a host for several plenary and concurrent panel sessions. 

  

• Tulane Health Office for Latin America (HOLA). OGH and the Tulane SPHTM also support the Tulane Health Office for Latin America (HOLA) in Lima, Peru, serving as a hub for Tulane faculty and students in a key focus country for research and training collaborations. Projects housed at HOLA are conducting cutting edge research on topics that include emerging infectious diseases and cervical cancer prevention. Moreover, some of the HOLA health projects focus on the intersection between human, animal, and planetary health through collaborations with Peruvian and U.S. colleagues from ecology, medicine, veterinary sciences, and geography. Visit the HOLA site for more information.

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  The Global Scholars Program. The Global Scholars Program is a student-run organization comprised on SPHTM graduate students interested in global health. As the largest student organization at the SPHTM, the program is designed to strengthen students’ readiness to become global health professionals through several key activities: monthly seminars with leading public health figures (including many Tulane alums) who share their own experience in a range of content areas, volunteer service activities in the community, networking opportunities, and writing for the group’s own magazine, The Internationalist. The group attracts like-minded students who can share their experiences of living overseas or their aspirations to do so. 

  The two student coordinators who administer the program in a highly participative manner are recipients of the Coverdell Fellowship. This is awarded to one outstanding Returned Peace Corps Volunteer per year with demonstrated experience in global health and leadership. The fellowship is a two-year commitment to work as the Global Scholars Program Coordinator. The leadership team also includes a recipient of the Coverdell Scholarship, awarded to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers that demonstrate passion, creativity, and expertise in specific areas. 

• Global Health Training Opportunities at Tulane. The COVID-19 pandemic has not halted new awards for OGH-sponsored NIH training grant positions. In 2020 and now again in 2021, all new trainees with international placements are required to go through the official Tulane travel approval process and to have a COVID-19 travel restriction contingency plan in place. 
  
   
  
  Tulane Program to Advance Representation in Minority Health Research (Tulane ARMHR): Six bright students were accepted for research training opportunities through the Tulane Program to Advance Representation in Minority Health Research (Tulane ARMHR), with projects in New Orleans or in one of our sponsored international sites (Peru, Dominican Republic, or Sierra Leone), and applications have been announced for the next cohort.

  UJMT Fogarty Global Health Fellows: Three Tulane-affiliated doctoral students or postdocs were offered year-long fellowships through the UJMT Fogarty Global Health Fellows program, in sites that include Mexico, Suriname, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We are hopeful that with recent improvements in the COVID-19 landscape many of these trainees will be able to benefit from global health training at their designated international sites, and a new round of fellows will be announced in the spring.