Women on hilltopMan with childrenThree womenGlobal Health WorkersBelen Peru

Welcome,


The UC San Diego Global Health Institute (GHI), is a UC San Diego campus-wide effort that aims to coordinate existing global health research and training efforts across the campus, and to generate new collaborations and educational programs to meet health challenges of global importance. Our goal is to serve as a resource for coordinating UC San Diego global health projects, courses, research, and training programs for the local global health community. 

Mission Statement

HIV counselors in Malawi

Think. Act. Impact.

In a world with constantly shrinking borders, global health is a growing concern. The University of California, San Diego is making an international impact with research and health care programs around the globe that fight diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

Our Mission

The mission of the UC San Diego Global Health Institute is to facilitate research, education and public-private partnerships across diverse disciplines to address global health challenges in the 21st century, and to serve as a coordinating body for training programs, service and global health-related curricula.

The Global Health Institute's themes of focus:
  • Global Infectious Diseases
  • Global Health Technologies
  • Global Mental Health
  • Global Migrant/Refugee Health

Global Health News and Events

Click facebook above for weekly updates on global health news and opportunities


Maurizio Vecchione talk on Sustainable Development Through Moonshot Thinking on April 13th at 5pm. Register to attend in-person or online 

UC Global Health Day 2022: Centering Social Justice in Community Health is on May 7th, starting at 8:30am PDT. Register to attend in-person or online here

Coronavirus/COVID-19

COVID-19 updates from UNHCR

UCSF Resilience and Emotional Well-Being Video Series

• UCSF Emotional Well-Being During the COVID-19 Crisis for Health Care Providers Webinar Series

COVID-19: Reflections and Updates, from Dr. Fauci, Dr. Farmer and Dr. Kim

Impact of COVID-19 on Adolescent Girls and Young Women and Needed Responses

• Dr. Fauci: COVID-19 and its global impact on AIDS, TB and malaria, hosted by Friends of the Global Fight

UCSD Health COVID-19 Virtual Grand Rounds

UCSD COVID-19 Projects

Global Impacts of COVID-19 webinar series by the UCSD School of Global Policy and Strategy 

  Psychological First Aid, special report from Mayo Clinic

 Q & A with Dr. Chip Schooley on how SARS-CoV-2 spreads, vaccine trials underway and more

Race, COVID-19 and deaths of despair, commentary in EClinicalMedicine

Coronavirus Resources, curated by the Center for Globoal Mental Health (CGMH) at UCSD

Coronavirus in the Navajo Nationa CBS news documentary

COVID-19 treatment for Navajo, Zuni, and Apache Peoples, a report from Dr. Don Kraitsik

• How mental health care should change as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic

• Contextualizing Coronavirus Geographically, a special virtual issue of the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

COVID-19: Another Unforced Error, presented by Dr. Schooley at Grand Rounds

COVID-19: The Tip of the Ice Berg, presented by virologist Dr. Ho 

COVID-19: A Coordinated Boston-wide Response, presented at MGH Grand Rounds

Confronting Coronavirus, a PBS NewsHour Special



Global Health Opportunities

Residential Research Group (RRG) Program

Call for participation in the Spring 2022 RRG, "How We Make It: Imagining Medical Justice After COVID's Long Haul"

Eligible applicants: UC faculty, recently graduated UC PhDs, UC doctoral students (must be enrolled and ABD at time of residency), and non-UC faculty.

Applications are due on Monday, August 2, 2021 by 11:59pm PST. 

Refugee Health Alliance

Refugee Health Alliance remote and on the ground volunteer opportunities.

CENEU Virtual Hybrid Medical Spanish Immersion Program

Upcoming dates for this intensive program designed for medical, graduate and undergraduate students:

 6/13/22-6/17/22 Doctor-Patient Relationship Unit 

6/20/22-6/24/22 Patient Conditions Unit

Learn more

UCGHI Student Ambassadors Program 

The 2022-2023 UCGHI Student Ambassadors Program application cycle ends on May 8th, 2022 at 11:59 PT. Learn more

HFIT Clinic

The UCSD Health Frontiers (HFiT) is a student run free clinic located in Tijuana's Zona Centro. Fall 2020 applications due September 1, 2020.

UCGHI GloCal Health Fellowship 

Looking for individuals interested in HIV research, non-HIV-related mental health research and other global health priority research areas such as women's health, planetary health and non-communicable diseases. Now accepting applications for the 2021-22 program. Deadline to apply is November 2, 2020.

UCSD Global Health Entities


"The CDIPD targets diseases affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide, but which are largely ignored by traditional drug and vaccine discovery companies because they primarily affect the poor and underserved".

"The CGMH seeks to collectively find ways to improve care and treatment for mental health since currently, such healthcare systems are inadequate worldwide".

"The IPATH center is the first dedicated phage therapy center in North America, bringing innovative research and clinical practice to the field of medicine".

"The GHP offers interdisciplinary degrees (BA, BS and MA) that aid in the understanding and productively intervening in processes of health, illness, and healing across the globe".

See resources to learn more


"The CGT and its Pacific Leadership Fellowship program focus on academic inquiry and policy analysis of international issues".  

Additional UCSD global health entities

A Challenge to Dignity Conference

Link to conference program

A Challenge to Dignity Conference brought together refugee health professionals working to advance refugee health all over the globe with a wide range of forcibly displaced populations for two days of presentations. The conference promoted discussions on a variety of refugee and asylum seeker health factors. Speakers and participants, in person and virtually, had the opportunity to compare notes and ask questions after each presentation. 

Link to conference sessions

A) Physicians and Health Care Providers

B) Community and Collaboration

C) Health Status of Refugees and Asylum Seekers

D) Women, Families, and Reproductive Health

E) Trauma and Treatment.

Link to individual sessions

Understanding the Health of Asylum Seekers, Refugees, and Migrants Through the Lens of Student Interns at a Student-Run Free Clinic on the US-Mexico Border (Jose Burgos and Victoria Ojeda)

Pathways Towards Medical Licensure for Refugee and Asylee International Medical Graduates Living in the US (Lillian Walkover and Susan Bell)

An Ethnography of Care: Physicians and Asylum Seekers on the US-Mexico Border (Thomas Csordas, Brenda Wilson, and Alexis Burnstan)

Global Health is also Investing in Political Change of the Systems that Drive the Harms we are made to Chase (Dona Murphey)

Models of Inclusive Programming: Resilience Humanitarianism, Social Entrepreneurship, and Social Justice (Catherine Panter-Brick)

New Horizons of Refugee Health and Wellbeing: Promoting Dignity Through Partnerhship and Social Inclusion (Charles Watters)

Affective Acts of Welcome: Volunteer Solidarians and US Asylum Seeker Resettlement (Kristin Yarris)

Refugee Collaboration and Self-Determination in San Diego (Christiane Assefa and Andrew Blank)

Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies in Migrant Populations in Tijuana (Ietza Bojorquez, Jaime Sepulveda, and Steffanie Strathdee

Infectious and Chronic Illness among Refugees and Asylum Seekers (Christine Murto)

Asylum Seekers at the Southern Border: The Effects of Federal Policies on Physical and Mental Health (Linda Hill)

Nowhere Near Enough: Deadly Labor in a Congolese Refugee Camp (Emily Lynch)

America's Wars and Iraqis' Lives: Toxic Legacies, Reproductive Vulnerabilities, and Regimes of Exclusion in the United States (Marcia Inhorn)

Refugee Reproductive Health: A Comparative Ethnography of Syrians' Experiences at Sites of First-Asylum Resettlement (Morgen Chalmiers)

Arab Refugees Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Domestic Violence: A Legal and Public Health Challenge (Maysa Hamza and Patrick Marius Koga)

Family-Based Mental Health Promotion for Somali Bantu and Bhutanese Refugees Resettled in the US: Results of and Implementation/Effectiveness Randomized Controlled Trial (Theresa Betancourt)

The Use of Waiting as a Detterrent to Migration, and Its Effect on the Well-being of Asylum Seekers (Olga Odgers Ortiz and Olga Olivas Hernandez

Trauma Loops: US Immigration Detention and Reverse Causality in PTSD (Hans Reihling)

Refugees on the Move: Health Along the Migratory Route Between Syria and California (Tala Al-Rousan)

"I'm Afraid I'll Die before I See You Again": Bureaucratic Violence and Ambiguous Loss among Refugees in the US (Bridget Haas)

Adapting to Mass Trauma and Displacement: Testing and Implementing the Adapt Model (Derrick Silove)

Does Humanitarian Mental Health Care Amount to Epistemic Violence or Is It a Matter of Saving Lives and Addressing Social Injustice? (Peter Ventevogel)