Humanitarian Health and Disaster Response - MPH

Mission:

Humanitarian action is a citizens’ response to political failure. The purpose of humanitarian action is to save lives, minimize suffering, and protect the integrity of the people, usually but not always in a short period of time. The mission of the Humanitarian Health and Disaster Response Program is to prepare a well-versed corps of global health professionals as humanitarian practitioners to address health and related issues in humanitarian settings. This program will equip students with necessary knowledge, attitudes and self-efficacy/skill-sets to assess needs, design and implement programs, and contribute to better decision-making, performance efficiency, and sound policy making within aid system and in humanitarian settings. The main strength of this program is in its breadth in building a wide range of skill-sets and to address the implementation challenges in humanitarian aid.

Goals:

The overarching goals of the program are to train students to be public health practitioners and leaders in design, implementation, and evaluation of humanitarian programs and policies through learning to:

• Understand and assess the fundamental causes of humanitarian situations and their public health challenges
• Understand and analyze the interdependence of health science, socio-political science, economics, and global governance in humanitarian situations
• Identify and apply common healthcare and socio-political and ethical tools and policies to assess and address the burden of a wide range of health and social conditions in humanitarian situations
• Produce data and evidence with scientific rigor, and assess the efficacy and effectiveness of wide range of social and health care interventions in humanitarian settings
• Generate and use best local and global level evidence for sound healthcare and socio-political policy formulation and program management, and to translate recommendations into actions that support on- the-ground humanitarian programs
• Develop strong cultural sensitivity and cross- and inter-cultural competencies within diverse health and political systems in humanitarian aid
• Develop understanding of and assume leadership positions in humanitarian aid industry and related disciplines
• Work with methodological rigor in and apply ethical frameworks and contribute to international-level priority setting, program design, implementation, and evaluation
• Communicate effectively the results of research and practice to a diverse group of stakeholders in humanitarian settings

Humanitarian Health and Disaster Response MPH, in this educational context, refers to sets of theoretical and practical knowledge and skills needed to address a wide range of public health and sociopolitical challenges that often make up or affect a humanitarian setting. 

A humanitarian setting encompasses a variety of conditions including an event/series of population-level events that have led to critical and serious threats to the health, security, and safety, livelihood and well-being of a community or large group of population due to natural or man-made phenomena and the community is unable or lacks appropriate support systems and copying mechanisms to address them by itself/on its own. Therefore, even communities that have already developed some coping mechanisms to maintain baseline services or support systems face significant disruptions in all social, governance, and health structures which lead to significant increases in mortality and morbidity beyond the baseline for such communities. The communities then need some significant external support from the international or national groups or agencies to maintain their services, community cohesiveness, and the livelihood and survival of their population.

Program Niche: To comprehensively and inclusively address humanitarian health challenges, the unique strengths of this program is that it brings together the span of knowledge and practical expertise from experienced faculty, researchers, and practitioners who have decades of real-life and operational humanitarian experience from a wide variety of active humanitarian and global health organizations including major international non-governmental agencies, WHO, UN agencies, CDC and US government international and global health agencies, academic global health institutions, and healthcare institutions from across the globe. The breadth and rigor of such a rich group of experts to teach and train a well-versed corps of public health practitioners in humanitarian situations is unmatched.  The main emphasis of and uniqueness of this program is in its characteristics to bridge the divide between public health theory and practice when it relates to humanitarian settings by focusing on building skill-sets that address and improve the implementation phase of sound humanitarian practices and programs.

Careers Trajectories:
As practitioners in humanitarian health and disaster response, the graduates of this program will have the competencies to pursue positions with:

• The international and national non-governmental organizations and governmental agencies that provide healthcare services in domestic or international humanitarian settings
• Academic institutions focusing on global or humanitarian health research and development
• Foundations and private sector entities that provide direct services or support related organizations in global health and humanitarian activities. 

While there is no expectation for graduates of the program to primarily work in humanitarian operations after graduation, and they can certainly find relevant positions and function perfectly in general global settings, they will be trained to be more versatile in their skills and have opportunities to cover a wide range of global health activities, including humanitarian operations. 

Examples of these organizations include:
International Rescue Committee, American Refugee Committee, IFRC, ICRC, Action Against Hunger (AAH), Doctors of the World (DOW, MDM), Doctors Without Borders (MSF), OCFAM, Save the Children, Mercy Corps, NRC, IMC, FHI, American Red Cross, USAID, CDC, DFID, ODI, Swedish International Development (SIDA), NORAD, SDC, DANIDA, Refugee International, World Bank, UNDP, UNCHR, UNICEF, WFP, IDRC, CARE, World Vision International, Canadian International Development, ActionAid, WHO, People In Need, Global Fund for Malaria, TB and HIV, IMC, Catholic Relief Services, ALIMA, CONCERN Worldwide, Helen Keller International, Pathfinder International, Olan International, PCI, RTI, Women’s Refugee Commission, Mother-to Mother, Worldwide Orphan Foundation, World Connect, etc.

Examples of these positions could include but not limited to:
Head of Mission, Chief of Service, Country Director, Emergency Coordinator, Program Officer, Program Associate, Executive Officer, direct healthcare provider, Health Advisor, Technical Advisor, Medical or Healthcare Coordinator, Program or Project Coordinator, Policy Advisor, Logistical Coordinator, Operational Director, Operational Officer, Board of Directors, Program Manager, President or Executive Director, Faculty Researcher, Faculty Educator, Resident Advisor, Care Coordinator, Senior Advisor, Senior Consultant, etc.

Students in the GW MPH programs gain practical skills and knowledge through their practice experiences. It is important for MPH Humanitarian Health and Disaster Response graduates to feel confident in their skills and gain real-world experience during their studies. Students in the Humanitarian Health and Disaster Health Response MPH program complete both an Applied Practice Experience (Practicum) and a Culminating Experience to practice their knowledge and skills in real-world settings.

Your Applied Practice Experience (Practicum)

In the Department of Global Health, the Practicum is designed to engage students in a Practice Activity—a planned, supervised, and evaluated experience in a public health organization. The Practice Activity can be related to either primary research or public health practice. It might include activities such as conducting literature reviews, writing proposals, designing ad campaigns, or collecting and analyzing data.

The Practice Activity for the MPH Global Health Policy degree may not be directly related to the student's day-to-day work. This is to ensure that students learn and apply new skills in the context of public health. If the student does conduct the Practice Activity at his/her place of employment, it must be work for which the student is not remunerated.

In recent years, students in the Department of Global Health have worked with over 200 organizations, in more than 50 countries.  The following organizations regularly host our practicum students:

• Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
• Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO)
• Peace Corps
• Population Services International (PSI)
• Save the Children
• World Bank
• World Health Organization (WHO)
• United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Your Culminating Experience

The Culminating Experience (CE) integrates the knowledge and skills students acquire through their academic work and the Practice Activity. The CE requires students to identify and define a specific public health issue and formulate hypotheses to address that issue. Students work with data obtained through either primary research or from an existing dataset. The process of proposal development, data analysis, interpretation, and extrapolation of the results culminates in a written report or manuscript and an oral presentation.