Equal opportunities for health: Action for development

“Equal opportunities for health: action for development“ is a two-year project (2007-2009) sponsored by the European Union, aimed at promoting global health and health equity and fostering a European public movement to achieve it. A key objective of the project is to improve the level of awareness and the quality of education in international and global health, primarily in Medicine Faculties and Public Health specializing schools, in order to capacitate health professionals to better face current globalization challenges and fully respond to their role as global health advocates.

The project has been satisfactorily extensive in coverage, involving 29 partners and associates from 6 EU member states (Italy, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium). As a case study, a mapping of undergraduate courses on international and global health was carried out in all Italian Medicine Faculties, to evaluate existing programs and assess training needs. Through sharing of knowledge, experiences and good practices among all partners and associates, and extensive review of literature, a standard curriculum on global health was designed. The aim was to have a useful tool to harmonise global health training and facilitate the advocacy action needed to promote the inclusion of global health into the core curriculum of Medicine Faculties and Public Health specializing schools. The standard curriculum is also the basis for other training activities, including training of trainers, seminars for health authorities and focus sessions at scientific societies’ national congresses.

Preliminary results confirm the relevance and the potential impact of a standard curriculum on global health as a tool to implement global health teaching both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. As stated in the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health Final Report, adopting a global health approach is a step towards promoting health equity, both at a local and at a global level.