The CUGH Global Health Educators Community (GHECo = “gecko”) provides professional development and networking opportunities for professors who teach global health courses, design curricula and experiential learning activities for nonclinical undergraduate and graduate programs, and oversee baccalaureate majors and minors, academic master’s degrees, and research-based doctoral degrees.
GHECo is an international, multidisciplinary community of practice for global health educators that began hosting monthly Virtual Teachers’ Lounges (VTLs) and other events in September 2023. GHECo membership is free to everyone; CUGH membership is not required. To receive invitations to the monthly online GHECo meetings and special events, please sign up for the mailing list using the form at https://cugh.groups.io/g/gheco. Questions about GHECo may be directed to the founding co-chairs, Kathryn H. Jacobsen (University of Richmond) and Caryl E. Waggett (Allegheny College)
To receive invitations to the monthly GHECo meetings and special events, please create an account at https://cugh.groups.io/g/gheco. All global health educators are welcome to join the listserv and attend GHECo events. CUGH membership is not a requirement for participation in the community.
| Domain | Global Health Learning Objective |
| Values | Describe the history, values, and functions of global health. |
| Globalization | Explain how travel, trade, and other aspects of globalization contribute to health, disease, and health disparities. |
| Socioeconomics | Summarize the economic, social, cultural, and political contributors to individual and population health. |
| Environment | Examine the connections between human health and environmental health, including considerations of water, sanitation, air quality, urbanization, ecosystem health, and climate change |
| Ethics | Discuss the relationship between human rights and global health. |
| Healthcare Systems | Compare the financing and delivery of medical care in countries with different types of health systems and different income levels. |
| Governance | Examine the roles, responsibilities, and relationships of the agencies and organizations involved in prioritizing, financing, and implementing public health interventions locally and internationally. |
| Epidemiology | Compare the burden of disease, disability, and death from infectious diseases, reproductive health issues, malnutrition, noncommunicable diseases, mental health disorders, and injuries in countries with different income levels |
| Interventions | Identify evidence-based, cost-effective, sustainable interventions for promoting health and preventing illness across the lifespan from the prenatal period through older adulthood. |
| Evaluation | Evaluate policies that seek to solve major population health concerns and achieve health equity. |
| Domain | Planetary Health Learning Objective |
| Earth System Changes | Identify the natural and human-generated causes of altered biogeochemical flows, climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental pollutants, land-system change, freshwater change, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone depletion, and other global environmental changes. |
| Ecological Systems | Describe how the ecosystems formed by human, domestic animal, wildlife, plant, and other biotic populations are affected by human actions across trophic levels, geographies, and time. |
| Human Health Outcomes | Explain how extreme temperature and precipitation events, reduced air and water quality, population displacement, and other global changes increase incidence, prevalence, and mortality from infectious diseases; malnutrition; respiratory, cardiovascular, and other noncommunicable diseases; sexual and reproductive health issues; psychosocial health disorders; and injuries. |
| Risk Assessment | Analyze how economic, social, cultural, political, environmental, technological, and health systems affect ecosystem and human vulnerability and resilience to environmental change. |
| Governance | Evaluate how local, national, and international laws and policies have contributed to environmental problems and solutions. |
| Actions | Compare the roles and responsibilities of governments, the commercial sector, civil society organizations, communities, and individuals in promoting conservation, restoration, mitigation, and adaptation related to environmental change |
| Ethics | Articulate the principles of intragenerational, interspecies, and intergenerational environmental justice. |
| Communication | Demonstrate environmental and health literacy by accessing, evaluating, and communicating reliable scientific information about global environmental change. |
Global Health Educators Community (GHECo) Newsletter
31 October 2025
New Article on (Re)Defining Global Health
The Koplan et al. definition of global health that was published in The Lancet in 2009 was written by a CUGH working group. An update to that definition that expresses the motivations of diverse global health actors and makes One Health and sustainability more visible was just published in Global Health Research and Policy: “Global health is a field of academic study, research, policy, and applied practice that advances the equitable protection and improvement of population and planetary health.” The authors explain that “We have aimed to balance idealism and pragmatism in our definition, retaining health equity as the ultimate goal and framing global health as broad but not borderless. We affirm calls for continued reflection and dialogue about power dynamics and politics in global health to ensure that the field evolves in ways that are responsive to critical perspectives and changing global realities.” The full article is available at https://rdcu.be/eM1jT.
Upcoming Webinars (all are free to participants!)
- The American Association of State Colleges and Universities is hosting a free webinar on “Global learning as a pathway to civic education” on November 20 (Thursday) from 1 to 2pm New York time. Details at https://aascu.org/events/2025-international-education-week/.
- The International Studies Association and the Council on Foreign Relations are hosting a free webinar on “Teaching in the AI era: understanding global trends and developing critical thinkers” on December 3 (Wednesday) from 1 to 2pm New York time. Register at https://link.cfr.org/join/66n/cfr-isa-2025-teaching-in-ai-era.
- The annual CUGH Virtual Global Health Week will be held December 2–4. Details about free webinars on global health financing, global health governance, health informatics, child health, food security, and other themeswill be posted at https://www.cugh.org/our-work/events/ and shared in the CUGH newsletter at https://www.cugh.org/resources/newsletter/.
Free Online Training on Infodemiology
The Public Goods Project is offering free online training on infodemiology, the study of how people find, (mis)understand, and use online health information. Access the course at https://training.infodemiology.com/publichealth to learn how to identify and respond to misinformation and disinformation in trending health narratives.
Survey Invitation for Nurses
The Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education (GCCHE) is conducting a Survey on Climate and Health Education in Nursing Institutions. If you are affiliated with a nursing school, please take a few minutes to complete the survey form at https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/research/programs/global-consortium-climate-health-education/research-surveys/survey-climate-health-education-nursing-institutions.
Job Opening at University of Miami (USA)
The Department of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of Miami is seeking a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Global Health and Environment. Details at https://umiami.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UMFaculty/job/Coral-Gables-FL/Assistant-Professor—Global-Health-and-the-Environment_R100091930-1.
Help us grow GHECo
If you have colleagues and friends who are involved in global health education but are not yet on the “gecko” mailing list, please invite them to sign up at https://cugh.groups.io/g/gheco.
Do you have items for the GHECo Newsletter?
Is your institution hosting an upcoming webinar or seeking job applicants? Is your professional society seeking submissions for an upcoming conference? Have you recently published a journal article about global health education? Would you like to host a special-topics VTL for a geographic region, an area of professional practice, or another theme? Please email information about upcoming events and new resources related to global health education to kjacobse@richmond.edu and/or cwaggett@allegheny.edu so that we can share them in the next GHECo newsletter!