Understanding Health Challenges in a Globalised World

I studied anthropology in Colombia and decided to become a researcher in a little-known branch of the field known as medical anthropology. I work for a research centre in Colombia that studies the health dynamics of different populations in the country. My job is to try to identify the social factors associated with dengue fever and its transmission and the development and assessment of community-based interventions undertaken to control and prevent vector-borne disease.

The Master of Clinical Research: International Health Track provided solutions to my needs. The classes and faculty expanded my questions

Having worked with excellent researchers in various fields—geographers, epidemiologists, economists, biologists, doctors and entomologists—I have become familiar with different viewpoints and understand the pressing need to work across disciplines, combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

I enrolled in the ISGlobal-UB Master of Clinical Research: International Health Track to learn about things that I hadn’t yet encountered in my career: new research methodologies and the experiences of programmes and projects that have successfully reduced the burden of various diseases in different parts of the world.

This master’s programme provided solutions to my needs. The classes and faculty expanded my questions and reinforced my need to understand the contexts in which health dynamics have an enormous impact on the population.

Choosing to study global health was the best decision I have made. Nowadays, diseases move around, travel by plane and are regulated globally

Choosing to study global health was the best decision I have made. Nowadays, diseases move around, travel by plane and are regulated globally. This makes it important to step back from the national scale in order to see how all the political, social, economic and cultural factors intersect to affect a disease, and to understand the problems of health in the context of a globalised world. An international perspective is crucial to improving public policy and carrying out interventions on both the micro and macro scale to improve people’s living conditions.

Now, the master’s programme is drawing to a close. After changing my mind and rethinking my professional future thousands of times, I can safely say that I’ve been exposed to multiple approaches.

It's important to step back from the national scale in order to see how all the political, social, economic and cultural factors intersect to affect a disease

What I will take away is the conclusion that research is crucial and that health interventions should take into account the context in which they are applied. In other words, social, political and economic dynamics should be considered in the design and implementation of these measures so that they can be successfully and sustainably replicated on a larger scale in ways that benefit the population. 

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ISGlobal-UB Master of Clinical Research: International Health Track