Educational Program Implementation in Academic Global Health Partnerships

Global health (GH) partners from high-income countries (HICs) and low-/middle-income countries (LMICs) can overcome workforce shortages by increasing the scale and quality of educational programming. The authors sought to identify factors that influence educational program implementation in academic GH partnerships from the perspective of US-based physicians.

In 2021, the authors invited 36 US-based pediatric GH practitioners to participate in semi-structured interviews. The authors used an iterative and inductive general interpretivist approach to analyze interview data through the lens of Rogan and Grayson's conceptual framework for curriculum implementation in LMICs.

The authors interviewed 20 (56%) of 36 invited participants and identified 9 themes in the data. Of those, key themes included: a) dissimilar training paradigms from multiple international partners in one host country; b) Western educators who have less knowledge of host-country systems and paradigms than regional educators; c) racism that leads to skepticism from donors and the scientific community; d) alternative commitments and priorities of host-country faculty; e) Tension and animosity that impair communication and collaboration between faculty from the US and the host country; and f) challenging work environment that affects trainee and faculty ethos.

This study highlights factors that influence implementation from US-based perspectives as a first step in gathering diverse perspectives. Themes depict the harmful effects of GH partners' well-intentioned tendency to increase HIC involvement when faced with implementation challenges. GH partners can use these themes to critically reflect on their implementation strategies early in program design.