Global Health Ethics Program

Co-directed by Kaveh Khoshnood, Associate Professor of Epidemiology (YSPH), and Tracy Rabin, Associate Professor of Medicine (YSM), the goal of the Global Health Ethics Program (GHEP) is to address the ethical aspects of global health clinical, research and educational activities pursued by Yale students, trainees, faculty and their partners. The GHEP:

• offers ethics education and training curricula to health professions students, trainees, and their faculty mentors;

• evaluates the impact of the ethics education and training; and,

• develops institutional standards for ethical global health engagement and partnership.

The GHEP consists of two distinct components:

Clinical Ethics

GHEP-Clinical Ethics has a three-pronged focus on training, scholarship, and advocacy related to ethical global health clinical engagement. Training activities concentrate on preparing students and trainees to identify and navigate ethical challenges they may face in the course of clinical global health rotations, as well as providing opportunities for post-rotation debriefings. Efforts are also underway to develop interprofessional training opportunities that reflect the team-based nature of clinical work. In addition to scholarship initiatives driven by the core faculty, GHEP-Clinical Ethics also engages colleagues from partner sites. Advocacy efforts include work to map and enhance global health clinical ethics curricular elements in the schools of Medicine and Nursing, as well as convening a wider group of University stakeholders around institutional standards for ethical global health engagement. At the same time, GHEP will partner with national and international organizations that focus more broadly on the promotion of ethical global health education and engagement.

GHEP-Research Ethics is a global health training program offered to Yale students completing short-term global health research projects. The program involves a pre-departure training workshop and global health research ethics support in preparation for and during a student’s project. Through case-based learning, the training provides tools that students need to identify and manage ethical challenges that often arise in global health research. The pre-departure workshop blends online learning with an in-person interactive classroom component. Students will learn the complexities of the IRB review process for global health research and how to ethically reflect on their projects.