The India Connection
Working Together
SPH faculty visited a community–based maternal health clinic in Manipal, India.
India has no schools of public health, yet its more than one billion people face immense challenges. Infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate are still at unacceptably high levels (57 per 1000 and 301 per 100,000 live births, respectively). If children live, 45.9 percent under 3 years of age are underweight; 79.1 percent between age 6 and 35 months are anemic; and only 43.5 percent are fully immunized. When it comes to smoking, tobacco claims close to a million lives a year.
The Indian government and those in its health and education sectors are keenly interested in building a well-trained public health workforce and in establishing their own schools of public health.
That’s where our School of Public Health comes in. SPH is committed to research and education partnerships with India. At present, these take the shape of alliances with various universities, institutes, and hospitals; Global Health India, a teaching/research exchange; and the field experiences of SPH students.
Recent trips to India by SPH and Medical School faculty members have included a visit to Kasturba Medical College at Manipal University in Mangalore. There they met with colleagues involved in infectious disease prevention, obesity prevention, technology-enhanced and distance learning, perioperative outcomes, and general public health efforts and explored an enhanced collaboration between the schools.
Establishing MPH in Manipal
The SPH is talking with Manipal to establish a joint Master of Public Health degree program and SPH Dean John Finnegan and the University have an agreement to pursue joint research projects with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
“I am delighted with the progress we are making with our partners in India,” says Finnegan. “The public health challenges [there] are immense, and we are committed to pursuing research and education partnerships to build that country’s public health capacity, advance our understanding of disease, and improve the health of its citizenry.”
Global Health India is a collaboration of the SPH, St. John’s Medical College in Bangalore, and several other colleges in India. Its goal is to acknowledge, learn, and discuss global health issues that unite the two countries rather than divide them. Twice a year, students from Minnesota go to India for five days of talks and learning alongside their Indian peers. SPH faculty members, as well as those from nursing, dentistry, medicine, and veterinary medicine, often teach with their Indian colleagues. All the Indian students have the opportunity to come to the SPH in exchange.
“Public health issues transcend national borders,” says SPH professor Bill Toscano an institute instructor. “If we are to effectively address these issues, we need to do so from a global perspective.”