NIH grant to fund development of global health curriculum

Dr. Jeffrey K. Griffiths, director of global health and associate professor of public health and family medicine at the School of Medicine, has secured a $375,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a global health curriculum across all Tufts’ schools.

Dr. Jeffrey K. Griffiths © MELODY KO

With the funding, Griffiths and his colleagues will develop a concentration in global health within the public health program and also create a core global health course open to all Tufts students. Griffiths and his team collaborated with colleagues at the Fletcher School and will pilot the global health course in spring 2006.

The funding will support efforts to link up with global health programs and colleagues in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia and other sites around the world by building on the Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase (TUSK), widely regarded as the nation’s most advanced and comprehensive online educational database in the health sciences. The grant will support student exchanges, bringing foreign students to Tufts and sending Tufts students abroad. There are also plans for twice-yearly global health workshops at Tufts.

Tufts faculty members Paul Kirshen, research professor of civil and environmental engineering; Abraham Sonenshein, professor of microbiology; Dr. Michael L. Bennish, associate professor of public health and family medicine; and Dr. Christine A. Wanke of the Nutrition/Infection Unit assisted with the grant application.