Re-Envisioning Global Health Competencies for the African Region Aligned with Local Health Needs and Resources

Abstract

Background: While many Global Health programs aim to address health inequalities within and between HICs and low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) there is a need to establish new Global Health academic programs within the growing trend towards 'internationalization of higher education'.Objective: This study was undertaken to re-envision Global Health competencies for the African region context with respect to the local health needs and availability of resources.Methods: This study was undertaken over a period of four years from 2017 till 2020. A three-pronged strategy was undertaken to scan, scope, distil and develop a set of Global Health domains and competencies for the African region. Strategy 1 encompassed an environmental scan of Global Health competencies (2017-2019), and a literature review (2017-2020); strategy 2 comprised a scoping of education programs in Global Health (2018-2019); and strategy 3 involved an interest-group discussion in a face-to-face conference.Findings: Seven core and four cross-cutting global health competency statements were developed for the African region. The core competency statements included following domains: global health systems and international relations; global evidence ecosystem; role of international organizations; universal health issues; intellectual property rights; responses to issues affecting different at-risk groups; local, national, and international policy and economic context affecting global health. The four cross-cutting competency statements included following domains: digital and academic literacies; quantitative and qualitative research; policy and funding allocation resources; ethical conduct of global health practice and research global health. Conclusion:There is a need to enable higher education institutions (HEIs) from the Global South to offer global health qualifications with a set of competencies that better approximate solutions to contextualised problems -not only to students from the Global South but also from the Global North. The global health competencies developed in this research study will enable African HEIs to offer global health education in a more pragmatic manner.

Global health postgraduate educational programs profile: a scoping review

“…Moreover, the progress of the domains and competency statements for global health are often conducted in accordance with programs present in high-income countries 23 . Thereby, professionals acting in low-income countries, lower middle-income countries, and upper-middle-income countries are not properly included in this construction 24 , which should not happen and need to be modified because it is not possible to have a holistic view of the global health without the participation of professionals from developing countries.…”

“…This will certain contribute to meeting global health challenges and ameliorating health outcomes. In turn, governments and academic institutions in low-and middle-income countries, mainly in the Global South, should make endeavors to participate and build common concepts of the global health field enabling the sharing of information in education, research, and implementation agenda for global health 24 . Moreover, the huge disparities between low-and high-income countries and among subpopulations inside countries arouse compassion and action in students 26 , which motivates them to develop joint international work.…”

Adaptive Learning Based on Artificial Intelligence to Overcome Student Academic Inequalities

“…This challenge is unique because it creates complex dynamics in developing learning strategies that can respond to the diverse needs of all students. Limited understanding, varied learning styles, and difficulties in following the curriculum are the main triggers for this inequality problem (Feniger 2020;Tiwari et al 2022). The implications are not only felt in terms of academic achievement alone, but also have a significant impact on the motivation and overall well-being of students in higher education environments (Son et al 2020;Shafique et al 2020).…”