|
Center Targets the Global Context of Health Care
In the midst of international concern over avian influenza and its potential to become infectious—human to human—University of Wisconsin-Madison prepares to unveil its Center for Global Health—an educational initiative to advance health within the global community. The center joins the schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine, and the Division of International Studies in focusing on education, research, and partnerships to address health care issues extending beyond national borders. It draws its strength from UW-Madison’s extensive expertise in the health sciences and international studies. Linda Baumann, PhD, APRN, professor at UW-Madison School of Nursing and member of the center’s steering committee, believes that the establishment of the center is timely. “Since millions of people travel daily between continents, many health issues must be viewed within a global context” says Baumann. “This is most evident in emerging infectious diseases such as SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] and avian influenza.”
It was not by coincidence that Baumann was chosen to help guide the center’s strategic direction. Baumann’s research in health disparities relating to race, ethnicity, and income, and in approaches to managing disease has taken her to Kenya, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, and Uganda. For more than fifteen years, she has traveled yearly to Vietnam to develop nursing training programs. Along with other nurse leaders from the United States and Thailand, she has provided training for nurse teachers, nurse administrators, and, most recently, physicians and nurses to help patients manage diabetes. One of the new center’s strategic priorities is to establish programs abroad that offer UW students field experiences in global health. Baumann is developing an interdisciplinary global health course with a field experience in Uganda. This effort establishes partnerships with key institutions to share research and advance global health. It also supports educational objectives. Baumann explains, “By visiting countries, especially those in the developing world, students gain an understanding of the complexity of health issues, such as the conditions from which many people immigrate to the U.S, or the environmental devastation caused by feeding the enormous U.S. consumption of fuel.” Students’ field experiences in other countries, adds Baumann, could influence their choices to practice with culturally or economically diverse populations in the United States. At the core of center’s goals is the understanding that Wisconsin’s health is directly linked to world health. “Attention to global health,” says Cynthia Haq, MD, the center’s director, “does not subtract from, but enhances our capacity to improve health in Wisconsin.”
Baumann agrees that learning about the success of other health care systems can lead to health care advances in Wisconsin as well as the nation. “Cuba,” Baumann says, “does a better job in addressing child immunization rates, maternal child health, and infant mortality. It also has neighborhood health care centers that serve everyone who lives in that geographic area.” Baumann initiated a similar neighborhood health care center in her own south side Madison neighborhood. She and student volunteers from the health sciences schools on the UW-Madison campus hold weekly sessions with members of the community in which they exercise and discuss health promotion and nutrition topics. The center will be inaugurated on December 7, 2005, formally launching
efforts to promote singularity of understanding on global health
issues. Baumann’s perspective summarizes the heart of the initiative:
“The more I visit developing countries, the more I see what we share
than what is different.”
|
©2003 University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing | 600 Highland Ave. | Madison Wisconsin 53792-2455