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Greetings!
We often hear from undergraduates that global health is among the reasons they choose to study to Duke. The same goes for Duke medical students. Now, medical students have one more opportunity to learn about global health and health disparities through a new clinical core. Read more about the new courses taught by faculty from across the university.
Continuing the theme of student engagement in global health, DGHI is proud to announce the latest membership of its Student Council. The Council serves as important advisors to DGHI leadership and as ambassadors for global health across campus. We're grateful for their help and support.
For our readers in North Carolina, enjoy the beautiful sunshine this week. For our non-NC readers, come visit us soon!
Until next week,
Geelea Seaford and Everyone at DGHI
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Duke Medical School Curriculum Integrates Global Health
 With the growing threat of pandemics and widening disparities in mortality and morbidity among low-income populations, it is increasingly vital for medical students to understand the significance of their own work within a broader global health context. The Duke Global Health Institute and the Duke School of Medicine have partnered this spring to provide this context through a unique short course on global health and health disparities. The Clinical Core in Global Health, under the direction of faculty coordinator and DGHI Senior Advisor Dennis Clements, will be one of five week-long clinical core courses required of second-year medical students in the Duke School of Medicine. Nearly two dozen DGHI faculty members will be involved in the program February 28-March 4, who will teach courses on global burden of disease, determinants of health, global cooperation in health and the impact of the environment on health.
"Success and progress in the field of global health requires the skills and knowledge of different disciplinary perspectives, including medicine, to both understand the social and economic determinants of health and to develop strategies and interventions that will address them and thereby improve the health of populations," said Clements, professor of pediatrics, medicine, community and family medicine, nursing and global health. "This short course allows medical students the opportunity to think about the impact of their work from an entirely different perspective." Medical students will also learn the importance of teamwork to solve problems outside of the confines of a single discipline or patient. Using an innovative team-based learning approach that was first embraced by the Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School, students will work in small groups to apply course material to real-world situations by debating a specific global health issue and developing recommendations.
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DGHI Studies Uptake of Preventive Measures for Malaria
"Malaria counts for 40 percent of the hospital visits in most areas of Kenya," said Duke Global Health Institute researcher Nathan Smith during last Friday's Global Health Exchange lecture.
In collaboration with DGHI faculty member Wendy O'Meara who is based in Eldoret, Kenya and other partners on the ground, Smith is investigating the knowledge levels and  available preventive measures for malaria in different districts of Kenya. By using GPS data and the AMPATH home-based counseling and testing program, a complete census was created for the Bungoma District of Western Kenya. Further data was collected to determine which of the households had at least one malaria-resistant bed net.
Smith noted that a lot of household and individual factors had to be taken into account for a data regression model to be created. "We conducted data analysis, density, distance and cluster analysis, as well as logistic regression to arrive at the results," said Smith.
His research shows that 79 percent of the households did not own a bed net. Another interesting result is that 95-98 percent of the children in these households had BCG immunization, however quite a few were missing their measles immunization. To further make sense of the data, the research team calculated the coverage percentage. The measurements show that households with children and rural households were more likely to have at least one bed net, compared to urban households and households without children.
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Council Advises, Guides Student Engagement at DGHI
Last month the DGHI Student Council held the first meeting of the year and kicked off a new semester of activities. Representing schools and departments across the university at both undergraduate and graduate levels, the Student Council offers balanced and in-depth feedback for DGHI on a number of education, research and service initiatives.
At the January meeting, the Student Council elected co-chairs Christopher Paul and Braveen Ragunanthan. In addition to advising DGHI on both its education and outreach programs, the Council is working with the Triangle Global Health Consortium and students from UNC and NCSU this semester to coordinate the first regional Global Health Case Competition.
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Represent Duke at 2011 Emory Case Competition
Want to compete against students from 12 different universities on a global health case competition? Emory University is hosting a national case competition in global health from March 17-20 and Duke Global Health Institute is sponsoring Duke students to make the trip and compete against the other teams. The event is an opportunity for graduate and undergraduate students from multiple universities and disciplines to come together to develop innovative solutions for 21st century global health issues. Apply by Friday, Feb. 25th.
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Study Finds Higher Incidence of Health Problems Closer to Mine Sites
DGHI faculty member Subhrendu Pattanayak, associate professor of public policy, environment and global health, is the lead author of a new paper in Health & Place on the environmental health effects of mine workers in the Indian state of Orissa, India. The study's chief finding reveals that people who lived closer to mines reported higher incidence of respiratory illness and more days lost due to malaria. The study is one of the first quantitative analyses of health impacts of mining on the local population, an important stakeholder in the policy debate over the expansion and privatization of the mining industry in India. Because the state of Orissa ranks poorly according to human development indices, these findings resonate with concerns over environmental justice.
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