Admissions to the Global Health Capstone Certificate have been suspended as of fall 2021 and will be discontinued as of summer 2024. If you have any questions, please contact the department.

The Capstone Certificate in Global Health Program is designed to advance the knowledge and capabilities of non-traditional learners with interests in global health. The certificate is available to capstone students with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree who have interest in global health.

The certificate curriculum focuses on global health topics and health issues that transcend national boundaries. Through this nine-credit program, which includes academic course work and a global health field experience emphasizing two-way learning, students will be prepared to better address health challenges and disparities in a context of cultural diversity, both at home and abroad. Certificate candidates often work with partners and sites internationally, but may also apply a global lens to issues of health and wellbeing in Wisconsin and other parts of the United States. This global-to-local philosophy is important to the program. Through choices of elective/selective courses, students may focus their studies on health promotion, detection and treatment of disease, prevention and management of outbreaks, health policy, environmental health, or other current and important global health topics. The certificate emphasizes multidisciplinary learning and approaches to global health challenges.

To accommodate working professionals, core courses are offered in the evening. 

Further detail, including current tuition and cost, is provided on the program's website.

Educational Benchmarks for Certificate Program

• To demonstrate self-guided learning habits, recognizing that experiential learning opportunities exist in many forms and that learning is a life-long endeavor.
• To interpret quantitative and qualitative information from the sciences, social sciences, and the humanities to inform global health work.
• To integrate contextually-grounded information about a location’s health, history, politics, culture, and environment into one’s learning experiences.
• To practice directed self-assessment and reflection about one’s experiences and chosen profession, including consideration of one’s role as a member of an interdisciplinary team.
• To compare and contrast the practice of health-related activities in different settings, including the social production of health and well-being.
• To draw connections between global experiences and local needs.
• To work effectively as a member of a diverse team to achieve shared goals.
• To effectively communicate ideas about health to other professions, as well as to community leaders and members of the general public.
• To recognize valuable opportunities for high and low-middle income countries to learn from one another, and creatively evaluate assets in addressing problems.
• To model ethical models of community-based engagement, recognizing the mutual benefit to learners and to the host community.

Admissions to the Global Health Capstone Certificate have been suspended as of fall 2021 and will be discontinued as of summer 2024. If you have any questions, please contact the department.

ADMISSION

Applicants must possess a baccalaureate degree. Must have a minimum GPA of 3.000. Applications are accepted for fall semester with a deadline in late spring.  Adult Career and Special Student Services (ACSSS) is the admitting office for all University Special students. However, the department offering the capstone certificate program makes the final admission decision upon review of all applicant materials.

Application steps

A complete application includes the following information:

1. An online application for admission as a University Special student, selecting UNCS Capstone Certificate and the program: Global Health. This application is received and processed by ACSSS with final decision held for approval from the specific capstone certificate coordinator. 
2. An application and materials submitted directly to the program, which includes:

• an online application directly to the program. The application includes a personal statement (maximum 350 words) which require a description of global health interest and previous experience, career goals, and how the skills obtained in the certificate program will improve the health status of underserved populations
• a resume and official transcripts for current programs and prior degrees sent to: Betsy Teigland (teigland@wisc.edu) of the Global Health Institute located at 4270B Health Sciences Learning Center, 750 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI 53705-2221.

ENROLLMENT

Admitted students receive a formal letter of admission to UW–Madison from Adult Career and Special Student Services along with general enrollment information. Additional detail is provided on the ACSSS enrollment page. 

The Global Health Institute will send an email to admitted students with specific information pertaining to enrollment in courses and completion of the capstone program. 

Core course requirements

¹

If possible, for optimal preparation, POP HLTH 718 should be taken prior to POP HLTH 640 and undertaking an independent field experience.

²

 POP HLTH 640 is for students planning to do an independent global health field experience. It includes selecting a site, identifying a counterpart organization, developing a scope of work that is of mutual benefit to the student and the counterpart organization, and preparation for travel (health and safety).

³

Students should take Independent Study 699 in the department of advisor, with certificate director approval.

⁴

POP HLTH 644 is for students planning to participate in the Uganda, Thailand, or Ecuador faculty-led field coursers and includes site-specific course work.  Eligibility for enrollment in POP HLTH 644 is contingent upon acceptance into one of the POP HLTH 645 field courses (see below). 

GLOBAL HEALTH FIELD EXPERIENCE

(1-6 credits in total; 1 credit counts toward certificate requirements)

A global health field course/experience is an academic credit-based learning experience in a setting relevant to global health. Field courses/experiences are generally carried out during the summer (less commonly within the normal academic calendar if they do not interfere with class attendance or completion of requirements for registered coursework); 1 week of on-site learning is equivalent to 1 credit. (Please note that only one field experience credit counts toward Certificate requirements; additional field course credits earned cannot be applied to the elective requirements.)

Students may elect to do: a faculty-led interdisciplinary group field course administered by the UW-Madison Office of International Academic Programs (IAP) or they may choose to design an independent field experience at the site of their choice, with approval of an academic advisor and the Certificate Program Director. Field experiences usually take place in a country outside the United States, but may also be carried out in the U.S., working with international/underserved populations and addressing health issues that have global implications. Students may also work with international agencies, such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or non-governmental organizations.

Field experience requirements:

For POP HLTH 645  faculty-led group courses (Thailand, Uganda, Ecuador), students are required to take the related prerequisite campus-based course (POP HLTH 644 Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Global Health and Disease) and apply to participate in the field course through the campus-wide Office of International Academic Programs. Upon satisfactory completion of the field course, students will receive credit for POP HLTH 645 .

For independent field experiences, certificate students must prepare a proposal, to be reviewed and approved by his or her advisor and the Certificate Program Director, which describes project goals and objectives and outlines a tentative schedule of activities.  (This is prepared as an assignment in POP HLTH 640 Foundations in Global Health Practice.) Students must register for independent study credit in an appropriate school or department (a 699 course number in most health sciences and graduate departments).

All students completing independent field experiences are required by the School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) to execute an affiliation agreement between the field site organization and the SMPH/University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Upon completion of the field experience, all students must submit to the Certificate program office:

• A summary of reflections on the field course/experience. (This may take the form of a journal kept throughout the field course/experience, or if a journal was not kept, a template will be provided);
• An instructor evaluation of the student; and,
• A reference-cited, academic paper/project report.

Students completing an independent field experience will also need to submit a site evaluation.

Minimum Requirements for Capstone Certificate Completion

• Students must earn a minimum grade of C in each course used to meet Capstone Certificate requirements.
• Courses in which a student elects the pass/fail or audit option will not count toward completion of Capstone Certificate requirements.
• All of the Capstone Certificate credits must be earned "in residence" (which includes on campus and distance-delivered courses) at UW-Madison.
• All of the Capstone Certificate credits must be earned while enrolled in the Capstone Certificate program.

Individual Capstone Certificate programs may have additional requirements for completion, which will be listed above as/if applicable.

1. Exhibit the ability to describe and compare the health care systems in different areas of the world (such as: an understanding of pros and cons of systems, comparison to the US system, and trends in the evolution of health care systems over time).
2. Demonstrate knowledge of the epidemiology of common global health concerns, both communicable and non-communicable (such as: differences between high/middle/low income countries and programs to mitigate the impacts of these health issues such as the millennium and sustainable development goals).
3. Demonstrate the ability to integrate information from multiple perspectives into an assessment of a country/location's health status (such as: history, politics, culture, societal structure, economics, environmental sciences, health care system(s), health databases, disease epidemiology, human rights, human subjects protections).
4. Model ethical behavior in global health engagement (such as: appreciation of the bidirectional nature of learning and mutual benefits between stakeholders and learners, cultural humility and flexibility, recognition of the importance of program sustainability over time, openness to new information/ideas).
5. Demonstrate professionalism, effective communication, leadership, problem-solving, and collaboration across multiple health education disciplines and stakeholders in addressing a global health issue (including an understanding of One Health approaches).
6. Exhibit the ability for growth in one's approach to global health work through self-assessment and structured reflection (such as: personal biases and perspectives, views on equity and disparities, personal limitations).