This certificate is being retired and no longer accepting applicants

Program Overview

A graduate certificate program is a linked series of credit bearing graduate courses that constitutes a coherent body of study and culminates in a capstone project. The Global Health curriculum emphasizes the sociopolitical, economic, and geographic factors that, in addition to biomedical factors, have an impact on health in developing countries. The Graduate Certificate in Global Health is intended to enhance the education of matriculated UW graduate students and professional students beyond their regular course of study.

Requirements

Students will qualify for the certificate upon completion of 15 credits and a capstone.

Required courses (9 credits total):

  • GH 511 - Problems in International Health (3 cr) AU
  • One of the following:
    • G H 514 Societal Determinants of Health (3) SP 
    • G H 544 Maternal Child Health in Developing Countries (3) WI 
    • G H 531/EPI 539 Research Methods in Developing Countries (3-4 cr) WI 
  • Three quarters of any combination of GH Seminars (3 cr total)

Elective courses (6 credits total):

The remaining 6 credits must be taken from the list of Global Health Graduate Courses.

Overlap of coursework applied towards the certificate program and degree program must not exceed 6 credits and is limited to elective coursework in each program. Core course requirements of a degree program may not be counted toward the certificate. For students completing more than one graduate certificate, no overlap between certificate programs is permitted. Therefore students are strongly encouraged to work with the coordinator of their degree program and with Certificate staff to develop a specific course plan that will meet the requirements of both the degree and the certificate. Courses taken prior to admission to the Certificate Program may be counted retroactively with permission of the Certificate Staff. Students may petition to have additional courses count towards the elective requirement if they provide the department with a copy of the course syllabus and readings to determine approval by the Departmental faculty and Certificate Staff.  

Note: A cumulative GPA of 3.0 is required of all graded courses and a grade of 2.7 or above is necessary for any individual course to count towards the certificate.

Capstone

All participants must complete a culminating capstone project and students are expected to find their own capstone project. All students completing the certificate are required to present their capstone projects (usually in Spring quarter). Students each develop and present an electronic poster for display at a special capstone presentation session. Examples of previous capstone posters can be found here. As of Autumn 2014 students no longer have to complete the capstone project abroad.

All students should identify a topic, project or practice site and submit a brief proposal to dghcerts@uw.edu. Please keep in mind that the capstone for the certificate is separate from a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation and you may not use any portion of your thesis or dissertation as your capstone project. However, if there are aspects of your projects that you have not used in your thesis or dissertation, you may use these components for your capstone. Your capstone project must directly relate to issues relevant to global health. (For example, work with immigrant populations in the US or research related to health problems of direct relevance to developing country populations could be appropriate capstone project.)

Certificate Completion

The quarter prior to graduation, all certificate participants must turn in the final version of their planning form for approval by the certificate staff. Completion of the Graduate Certificate in Global Health will be acknowledged on the student’s official UW transcript.  The student must be a matriculated UW graduate student during the quarter the graduate certificate is awarded.  Certificates cannot be awarded retroactively.

Admissions

Applications for the Global Health Certificate program are accepted throughout the year and reviewed quarterly.  Please send the following items:

  • The completed application and course planning  form: Application Form [Word Doc]. This document shows that you have a vague idea of what your work/capstone will entail. The course planning can change as you become more familiar with some of the classes you want to take to fufill each requirement. 
  • Current UW Graduate School transcripts (unofficial will suffice).
  • A faculty advisor’s signature on the planning form. This signature is necessary to confirm you have told your advisor in your home department that you are pursuing a graduate certificate in addition to your degree program.

You can email this information to dghcerts@uw.edu 

For additional information, contact dghcerts@uw.edu