Global Health Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges, Adaptations, and Lessons Learned

Abstract

Global health education programs should strive continually to improve the quality of education, increase access, create communities that foster excellence in global health practices, and ensure sustainability. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the University of Minnesota’s extensive global health education programs, which includes a decade of hybrid online and in-person programing, to move completely online. We share our experience, a working framework for evaluating global health educational programming, and lessons learned. Over the decades we have moved from a predominantly passive, lecture-based, in-person course to a hybrid online (passive) course with an intensive hands-on 2-week requirement. The pandemic forced us to explore new active online learning models. We retained our on-demand, online passive didactics, which used experts’ time efficiently and was widely accessible and well received. In addition, we developed a highly effective synchronous online component that we felt replaced some of the hands-on activities effectively and led us to develop new and innovative “hands-on” experiences. This new, fully online model combining quality asynchronous and synchronous learning provided many unanticipated advantages, such as increasing access while decreasing our carbon footprint dramatically. By sharing our experience, lessons learned, and resources, we hope to inspire other programs likewise to innovate to improve quality, access, community, and sustainability in global health, especially if these innovations can help decrease negative aspects of global health education such as its environmental impact.

Remote online global health education among U.S. medical students during COVID-19 and beyond

“…As educational initiatives transitioned to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, other evaluations of these educational efforts have also highlighted the positive components of virtual learning and corroborated our findings that both students and faculty appreciate the accessibility and increased opportunity for global collaborations of remote global health education [ 38 , 39 ]. In particular, in making the field of global health more equitable and engaging with global colleagues, both our course and others in remote global health demonstrated clear advantages of integrating global perspectives and restructuring equitable partnerships in global health by removing the barrier of travel that in-person learning presents [ 39 – 41 ].…”

Virtual global health in graduate medical education: a systematic review

“…Certain elements were both enablers and barriers, specifically funding, the need for protected and convenient course timing, and technological support needed for VGHEA implementation. The double mention of these factors highlights their critical importance to the success of VGHEAs; indeed, those articles that mentioned funding, [47][48][49][50][51][52] timing, 40,[53][54][55] and strong technology 40,49,53,54,[56][57][58][59][60][61][62] as facilitators of VGHEAs offer key insights into how to overcome barriers that may prevent successful VGHEA implementation. More research in this area will be important to guide the planning and development of VGHEAs, particularly between HIC/LMIC partners who will have different needs and capacities.…”

Mental health and COVID‐19: The impact of a virtual course for family caregivers of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities

“…The course format, incorporating an interactive and peer-led pedagogy, likely contributed to its success. Through our prior family webinar experiences, and emerging literature on online education during the pandemic, we learned that providing information in a passive, didactic format is not as effective or readily applicable to learners (Castro et al 2021;Chick et al 2020;Kennedy et al 2021;Krohn et al 2021). As such, building off of teaching strategies utilised within the ECHO model (Sockalingam et al 2018), multidisciplinary course facilitators engaged with caregiver participants through relevant, applied activities.…”

“…While there have been efforts to develop resources in support of caregivers, recent studies have shown that they can be difficult to access and that sharing information in a passive, didactic format may not foster a sense of community (Castro et al 2021;Chick et al 2020;Kennedy et al 2021;Krohn et al 2021). Similarly, while there is evidence that families benefit from peer support programs (Bray et al 2017;Fisher et al 2020;Muralidharan et al 2021;Suresh et al 2021), few interventions involve caregivers in their design and delivery.…”