International Internships and Research Projects

Peace Corps Fellows Program – The Peace Corps Fellows Program promotes the scholarship of engagement and community outreach by giving fellows tuition remissions and internship opportunities. The UA Zuckerman College of Public Health is proud to have 18 fellows, the most returned Peace Corps Fellows of any college at the University of Arizona.

Links:
Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Program
Peace Corp press release

Global Health Alliance (GHA) – The GHA, a student driven organization, aims to enhance students’ knowledge of how public health functions in a global context.

Faculty Research and Outreach

Jeff Burgess, MD, MPH – Dr. Burgess is the Principal Investigator for the NIH/Fogarty International Center-funded International Program for Mining Health and Safety as well as for research projects evaluating smoke exposure and arsenic exposure.

Iman Hakim, MD, PhD, MPH – Dr. Hakim is the principal investigator of studies that look at the preventive effects of tea. Dr. Hakim and other researchers at the College have published their findings about the connections between tea and cancer prevention in health, cancer, nutrition, and health promotion journals around the world. The testing methods and standards they have developed are now used internationally in tea studies. They began as pioneers and continue to lead internationally in researching tea’s potential to prevent cancer.  More...                                                

Robin Harris, PhD, MPH – Dr. Harris is the Principal Investigator of a binational study conducted with the Sonora Institute of Technology and the University of Sonora to help determine whether there is a harmful level of arsenic in drinking and cooking water in Arizona and Mexico.  More...            

Mary Koss, PhD – Dr. Koss, a Regents’ Professor, is the world leader on sexual violence. Koss developed the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES), a survey instrument used for more than 20 years to obtain self-reports from both victims and perpetrators of sexual assaults. SES has been adopted to assess sexual violence in locales as diverse as Kosovo, East Timor, Rwanda and Columbia. She also has been involved in HIV/AIDS prevention in South Africa.        

Maria Elena Martinez, PhD, MPH – Dr. Martinez is leading an international team of researchers from two universities in Mexico and a U.S. cancer center to determine why breast cancer appears to present at an earlier age for Hispanic/Latina women than for non-Hispanic Whites.  More...                          

Joel Meister, PhD - Dr. Meister has been working with the US-Mexico border communities for about 20 years. Currently, he is heading a study that looks at the unique health problems in border residents that stem from increasing migration, threat of terrorism and intensive surveillance. He is also the principal investigator of a subcontract in collaboration with Mariposa Community Health Center to develop the Border Women’s Health Institute. The BWHI is a leadership training program for community health workers from 10 border states, including six Mexican border states. More...

Ralph Renger, PhD – Dr. Renger and Dr. Jeff Burgess are both involved in a grant doing research in mines in Zambia.

Doug Taren, PhD – Dr. Taren’s research has included studies on women’s prenatal health and children’s health, including international work conducted in Zambia and Nepal. Dr. Taren has also directed a study on the knowledge, attitudes and behavior of children in Kingston Jamaica in conjunction with the World Health Organization Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute.       

Opportunities to Study International Public Health Issues

Diplomado en Salud Pública and TIES (U.S.-Mexico Training, Internships, Exchanges and Scholarships) – Diplomado en Salud Pública is a multi-institutional, binational and interdisciplinary program that focuses on the unique public health issues facing both Mexico and the United States, such as migrant health, infectious disease and environmental health. The program is a collaboration between the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health and El Colegio de Sonora (COLSON), Hermosillo, Mexico. It is also a part of the U.S.-Mexico Training, Internships, Exchanges and Scholarships (TIES) partnership, which provides support for public health scholars from Sonora to spend up to nine months at the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health.

Links:
Mercedes Gameros story
Binational Public Health Certificates story

Family and Child Concentration Area – MPH students entering the Family and Child Health Concentration (FCH) must choose a plan of work in one of two specialized areas: maternal and child health or international health. More...                                                                                                         

Rural Health Office (RHO) – Part of the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health, the RHO has provided an extensive framework for service collaboration with underserved communities throughout Arizona, as well as the Southwest and internationally. More...   

The Southwest Center for Community Health Promotion (SWCCHP) – SWCCHP partners with communities in participatory research that promotes the health of multiethnic communities at the Arizona-Sonora, Mexico border. The center conducts interventions to prevent and control diabetes and associated obesity and depression through community action to change behavior, policy and the  environment.  More...