ABSTRACT
If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the excitement on the campuses of universities in the United States (US) and in many other industrialised nations. Students are thinking and talking about global health, and asking what they can do to help to reduce the disparities that exist between rich and poor nations. They are being guided by faculty who are themselves committed to global health research, education and training, and service. Students are increasingly taking the plunge, finding ways to spend time in resource-limited developing nations, offering their best efforts to help (Merson and Chapman Page 2009). It has become a movement, not just of people, but of their hearts and their minds, and it has grown dramatically over the past several decades. Recently, the Consortium of Universities for Global Health surveyed 37 universities with well-established global health programmes (CUGH 2009). The results document a doubling in the number of students enrolled in global health programmes in these leading institutions over just the past three years, as well as an increase in the average number of student-led organisations focused on global health to over three per campus. More than 150 US universities are developing some sort of initiative in global health. There is considerable interest in the global epidemic of HIV and AIDS, but this is by no means the only problem driving student and institutional interest.
