Are you a student who cares deeply about the health and well-being of people around the world? Are you interested in learning more about health equity, infectious diseases, the pandemic, or interdisciplinary approaches to other pressing health-related issues for our global community? Are you looking to make a meaningful difference? If so, our Global Health program might be a great fit for you!
This year marks the first that we offer both a major and a minor in Global Health at Hope College. To kick off this exciting 2022-23 school year, we hosted a Global Health Interdisciplinary Learning Community gathering on August 22nd where our faculty and students had the privilege of listening to and being inspired by two outstanding guest speakers.
Renata Schiavo, PhD, MA, CCL, is a Senior Lecturer at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, the founder and board president of a nonprofit membership organization called Health Equity Initiative, and a principal at the global consultancy Strategies for Equity and Communication Impact. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed Journal of Communication in Healthcare; Strategies, Media, and Engagement in Global Health (Taylor & Francis) and serves on the editorial board of Health Equity. She is a passionate advocate for health equity and a committed voice on the importance of addressing and removing barriers that prevent people from leading healthy and productive lives. As a researcher, advocate and practitioner, her interests focus on community- and system-driven multisectoral models, partnerships, and interventions to address health equity, human rights, and communication issues. Dr. Schiavo has worked on 20+ health and human rights areas, including health equity/health inequities, COVID-19, epidemics and emerging disease outbreaks, maternal, newborn, infant and child health (MNICH), immunization and vaccine hesitancy, and building trust in science. She has significant experience in global health issues across multiple country settings, including the United States and several countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Asia.
Ken Fawcett, MD, is one of our Global Health program community partners. Ken has lived and worked in West Michigan for thirty years. His career includes service as a pediatrician and administrative leadership. In his current role as Vice President at Spectrum Health, he leads Healthier Communities, established to be the fiduciary for funds set aside to support community programs at the time of the merger between Butterworth Hospital and Blodgett Memorial Medical Center which created Spectrum Health. The Healthier Communities mission is to create the most equitable health outcomes at individual, neighborhood, and regional levels through medical programming and upstream interventions, and provision of clinical care that addresses social determinants of health. Healthier Communities has three areas of strategic focus: improving maternal-infant-child health, economic security, and chronic disease. Ken says that collaboration with community partners like Hope College’s Global Health program are critical to their efforts.
It was an absolute honor to have the opportunity to welcome them both to our 2022-23 kickoff event. Their support now and in the future will be a huge asset to us, our students, and our community.
To learn more about our Global Health Program here at Hope College please check out our website at https://hope.edu/academics/global-health/. Or email us at globalhealth@hope.edu or ferrigan@hope.edu with any questions.