Global health diplomacy training for military medical researchers

Given the unprecedented growth of global health initiatives in the past decade, informal diplomacy between technical partners plays an increasingly important role in shaping opportunities and outcomes. This article describes a course developed and executed specifically to equip U.S. military health professionals with core skills in practical diplomacy critical to help them successfully plan and implement public health surveillance, research, and capacity building programs with partner nation governments and organizations. We identified core competencies in practical diplomacy for laboratory and public health researchers, catalogued and evaluated existing training programs, and then developed a pilot course in global health diplomacy for military medical researchers. The pilot course was held in June 2012, and focused on analyzing contemporary issues related to global health diplomacy through the framework of actors, drivers, and policies that affect public health research and capacity-building, beginning at the level of global health governance and cooperation and moving progressively to regional (supranational), national, and institutional perspective. This course represents an approach geared toward meeting the needs specific to U.S. military public health personnel and researchers working in international settings.