The Global Health Studies Program (GHSP) is a unique interdisciplinary, international, and experiential program of study for both graduates and undergraduates. It provides an integrated approach to the complex processes influencing health and disease around the globe. The GHSP focuses not only on the manifestations of significant diseases and public health and health care systems but also on the underlying forces and institutions such as technology, politics, culture, legal structure, history and economics, which collectively influence patterns of health and disease.

The Program offers a variety of courses and a certificate and a minor.  In addition, the Program provides courses that meet the requirements for the B.A. in International Studies, with an emphasis in Global Health, offered by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

As a field, global health studies assume that health everywhere is subject to the dynamic processes of change impacting advanced Western societies as well as less developed societies and that the social roots and construction of health and disease require solutions beyond those provided by the health sciences or the pharmaceutical or the biotechnology industries. Additionally, the GHSP acknowledges that creative responses to these challenges are evolving on many fronts and can no longer be expected to flow only from the industrialized to the non-industrialized world.

In this era of globalization, societies are rapidly becoming more interdependent on each other. In recognizing these trends, the University of Iowa has adopted a strategic plan underlining the importance of interdisciplinary thinking and international competency. The Global Health Studies Program responds to this mandate and strives to ensure that students acquire the skills, experiences, and insights necessary to enable them to respond to this interconnected world. As a field of inquiry, Global Health Studies is inherently interdisciplinary and international in content.

This site introduces the Global Health Studies Program, its courses, activities, Certificate, associated faculty, and the variety of opportunities for program-related international study, research and internships.