Center for Law in Science and Global Health
Projects
Global Health and Justice Project
The Global Health and Justice (GHJ) Project, based at the School of Law, is a multidisciplinary project encompassing academic and educational activities, as well as field activities in developing countries in collaboration with the Seattle-based NGO, Uplift International. The mission of the Project is two pronged. First, it seeks to educate graduate and undergraduate students at the UW about health equity, human rights law and policy, bioethics and social justice and their relationship to population and global health. Second, it aims to provide students and faculty with research and service opportunities in our health and human rights field programs.
The Global Health and Justice Project began to develop the Health and Human Rights Course in 2001. It is multidisciplinary in course content, student enrollment and teaching. The Health and Human Rights course is cross-listed in the Law School, Jackson School of International Studies, Evans School of Public Affairs, and School of Public Health and Community Medicine and regularly draws students from all of these schools and departments, as well as several others, including Nursing, Medicine, and Engineering. We are currently developing an International Research Ethics course, that will debut in 2007; it will be cross-listed in Law, Medical Ethics, Public Health, the Jackson School, and possibly the Nursing School. We have plans to develop many other courses, including International Health Regulations and Policy and Women’s Health and Human Rights.
The Program has a track record of providing students and faculty with opportunities to participate in field programs. In 2003, students and UW faculty participated in the first ever National Conference on Health and Human Rights in Jakarta, Indonesia. We continue to have an active research and education program in Indonesia directed by Research Associate Professor Rivin, in collaboration with the University of Indonesia School of Law and Medicine and the Indonesian Doctors Association. This year, UW faculty will collaborate with Indonesian colleagues to develop innovative continuing medical education and professional curriculum in bioethics and human rights.
Our Global Health and Justice Project recently partnered with the Schools of Medicine and Public Health and the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology in the "Frameworks for Global Health: Local to Global" Project funded by the NIH's Fogarty Center. The Frameworks Project brings together faculty and resources to address the challenge of translating research and medical advances into improvements in global health. The goal of this project is to develop new curricular resources and administrative frameworks that will remove barriers to and facilitate both inter- and multi-disciplinary training in global health. To this end, the School of Law is primarily responsible for developing a new graduate Certificate in Global Health and Social Justice. It will be comprised of four courses, the aforementioned Health and Human Rights course, the upcoming International Research Ethics course, a yet-to-be developed International Health Regulations and Policy course, and the Frameworks Capstone course. We anticipate that the Graduate Certificate Program will be implemented in 2007.
Our Global Health and Justice Project has also partnered with the Schools of Medicine and Nursing in submitting a second grant to the Fogarty Center. This grant, if funded, will create an International Biomedical Research Ethics Fellowship designed to build research ethics capacity in the low- and middle-income countries. Our target countries are Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the People's Republic of China. We anticipate a funding decision in mid-summer. If it is favorable, we will seek to leverage funding to increase the size of the fellowship program.