Health Policy and Management

Overview

We have initiated an effort to work with universities around the nation and world to create a consortium of executive doctoral programs based on the model we developed and implemented in 2005. That model - the first distance DrPH program - anticipated the potential for technology enhanced learning to prepare mid-career professionals for senior-level positions in organizations working domestically and internationally to improve the public's health. Through the Global Doctoral Health Leadership Consortium, we now seek to extend the program model to accelerate the pace and reach of urgently needed doctoral-level leadership training for senior health professionals around the world. Member schools will share curriculum, distance learning technology and school resources. They will function as a well-coordinated network in which faculty may teach across universities and students may take courses or portions of courses from schools other than the schools in which they are enrolled. By addressing the critical need for global leadership development within the senior public health workforce, we have an opportunity to contribute substantially to efforts to improve the health of people worldwide. 

 

Consortium Aims

The consortium will increase capacity globally to produce first-rate future health leaders. It will maximize the quality of doctoral programs in the consortium. A very significant advantage for our students is that the synchronous distance technology enables world class experts to teach courses regardless of where those experts are located. At present, faculty from Boston, Toronto, and Washington, DC teach courses in the UNC program. The consortium will enable us and other schools to expand their access to faculty expertise throughout the world. Diversity promotes excellence.

Background and Needs

UNC's Doctoral Program in Health Leadership prepares mid-career professionals for senior-level positions in organizations working domestically and internationally to improve the public's health. The distance format allows working professionals to complete doctoral leadership training while continuing full-time employment, remaining in-country throughout the duration of their education. The DrPH was launched in 2005 with the intent of including only U.S. students, but due to demand from international students, advances in our distance technology, and because we believe international students enhance the learning experience for all of us, we have admitted a few students from other countries, including France, Lebanon, Uganda, Hong Kong, and Indonesia.

However, the UNC program can admit no more than 12 learners per year. Demand greatly exceeds this capacity. Importantly, too, we hope in 2010 to begin scheduling one of our three annual face-to-face meetings with students overseas. These between-semester, three- to four-day meetings are key to program success, greatly enhancing cohort cohesion. In addition to discussions with top leaders, courses end and begin during these meetings. A cooperative network of partner programs would greatly enhance opportunities for in-person interactions for students and faculty across programs during these visits or at jointly planned annual meetings.

For all of these reasons, we believe the timing is right to enter into a phase of active planning for this international network of partner programs. A teleconference among interested parties was held in March 2009, and the first in-person meeting of institutional representatives will be held in London, UK at the end of May 2009. Initial participants include l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique, Paris; University of Toronto; The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; King's College, London; the BI Norwegian School of Management and Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Health Services; the University of California at Berkeley; the University of Georgia, the University of Minnesota and the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.

For more information, contact Suzanne Havala Hobbs, DrPH, Program Director, at suzanne_hobbs@unc.edu.