The Global and Population Health Track engages students with interests that go beyond the boundaries of clinical medicine and individual patient care. Students in this track explore the range of forces—medical, social, cultural, political, economic, and legal—that have an impact of the health of populations in the United States and around the world. 

 Global health is “an area for study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving health equity for all people worldwide.” In our conception, global health refers to the interplay of factors that affect health of populations without respect for national borders. The global in global health refers to the scope of problems, not their location. Population health brings significant health concerns into focus and addresses ways that resources can be allocated to overcome problems that drive poor health conditions. Population health is an interdisciplinary approach that utilizes non-traditional partnerships among different sectors of the community—public health, industry, academia, health care, local government agencies—to achieve positive health outcomes.

Thus, any project that seeks to define factors associated with poor health outcomes within a population and address ways in which resources on the individual and organizational level can be utilized to overcome poor health outcomes can be considered part of the Global and Population Health tract. Global health projects aim to understand and reduce health challenges in international or domestic settings and to cultivate deep cross-cultural understanding. These projects provide students with opportunities to learn about and experience global health directly and consider health beyond the clinical perspective. 

 Scholarly projects may be done in an international or domestic setting and use clinical or population-based research, professional or patient education, policy work or advocacy, humanistic or bioethical analyses, or other scholarly approaches to address a range of health issues including: infectious diseases; chronic diseases; children’s or women’s health; mental health; population health, demography, and aging; global health delivery and health systems; technology innovation; crisis and conflict; ethical issues; or another topic of interest. Projects could build upon or add to ongoing projects (i.e., research, health interventions, educational activities) that aim to strengthen existing capacity and infrastructure on a long-term basis.

Michael T Yin, MD MS. Associate Professor of Medicine and Program Director for the Fellowship Training Program in Infectious Diseases at CUIMC. Dr. Yin is the Co-director of the Biobehavioral Core of the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at NYSPI and Deputy Director of the Wu Family China Center at CUIMC. His clinical work and research focus on optimization of HIV treatment and care. In particular, he is interested in prevention of metabolic complications associated with chronic inflammation and antiretroviral therapy throughout the lifespan, from children with perinatal HIV acquisition to older adults living with HIV. He is an active investigator in Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), and maintains research collaborations in South Africa, China, and Brazil.