Ohio University School of Public Health Sciences and Professions

About the program
Students in the African Community Health Services Graduate Certificate Program can make the difference in African community health through interdisciplinary collaboration. This program, which requires a minimum of 24 quarter-based credit hours, is designed to help students develop their abilities in career building, sharpen skills in community health and in the delivery of health-care services to African regions, and extend their understanding and ability to address African health issues and challenges.

The program blends socio-behavioral, political, educational, communication, biomedical, environmental and public health dimensions. It promotes creative, programmatic, effective understanding and management of African contemporary health-care environments and services.

The program explores research on health-care services, disease prevention, environmental sanitation, politics and economics of health care, and the use of health information and communication systems and processes to promote African community health development/organization and social action.

The program provides students the flexibility to critically adapt classroom learning to solving African community health issues based on the socio-behavioral, political, cultural, economic and health-care needs on the continent.
Purpose

The program welcomes international students and all professionals involved in health-care services. Following are the program’s goals:

• Address a variety of critical issues in African health-care delivery services
• Enable the sharing of ideas between students of various cultures in community health
• Enlighten minds and broaden perspectives necessary to tackle African health-care issues
• Provide information on the role of culture in health and disease states, elements of African health-care systems and global issues and problems that threaten community health and health-care services across Africa.
• Gain insights into the United Nations-formulated Millennium Development Goals for developing countries
• Enable recent bachelor’s degree graduates and current graduate students to acquire community health skills/knowledge in basic research, policy development, program planning, implementation and evaluation in order to be able to practice community health
• Provide a course of study that links practice and theory of African health issues and provides a critical perspective on both (theory and practice)

Eligibility for the program
The African Community Health Certificate Program will accept students in two categories: those who have been admitted to an advanced-degree program at Ohio University and those who possess a bachelor’s or advanced degree but are not currently in a degree program at Ohio University.

If you are a current advanced-degree-seeking student at Ohio University, you must meet the following requirements to be considered for admission to the graduate certificate program:

1. Acceptance into an advanced-degree program
2. Satisfactory completion of undergraduate (grade of “C” or better) or graduate courses in basic anatomy and physiology, statistics, economics and socio-behavioral sciences, as reflected on official transcripts
3. One to two years of professional-related experience in a community health/social service governmental or non-governmental agency, organization or business with health-related programs

If you are not currently seeking an advanced degree from Ohio University, you must have the following to be considered for unconditional admission to the graduate-certificate program:

1. Bachelor’s or advanced degree from an accredited college or university
2. Minimum undergraduate grade-point average (g.p.a.) of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale in last 90 quarter hours or last 60 semester hours (undergraduate) or an earned graduate or professional degree
3. Ability to do graduate studies, as evidenced by one of the following:
   a. Acceptable Graduate Record Examination (GRE) score within the last three years prior to application submission, OR
   b. Interview with the program coordinator, OR
   c. Description of your significant work experience, such as a portfolio
   NOTE: if you intend to continue to a graduate degree-seeking status within the School of Health Sciences, you must submit the GRE score. If you plan to apply to another graduate program, you must meet that program’s admission requirements.
4. Satisfactory completion of undergraduate (grade of “C” or better) or graduate courses in basic anatomy and physiology, statistics, economics and socio-behavioral sciences, as reflected on official transcripts
5. One to two years of professional-related experience in a community health/social service governmental or non-governmental agency, organization or business with health-related programs

Application information
Admission may be granted in any quarter. Application deadlines are:

Fall.................................................July 1
Winter............................................Nov. 1
Spring............................................Feb. 1
Summer........................................April 1


Curriculum
Students are required to complete a minimum of 24 quarter-based credit hours from the following categories:

Required courses
HLTH 615 Maternal and Child Health in Africa (4)
HLTH 617 HIV/AIDS in Africa (4)
HLTH 610 Program Evaluation and Assessment in Health Care (4)
OR
HLTH 624 Community Health Programs (4)

Other courses
(Student selects at least one course from each of the following three groups.)

Group 1
GEOG 531 Geography of Africa (5)
BIOS 544 Tropical Disease Biology (4)
COMS 510 Cross-cultural Communication (5)
COMS 852 Health andCommunication Culture (5)

Group 2
HLTH 648 Ethical Issues in Health Care (4)
HLTH 677 Grant Proposal Writingin Public Health (4)
*ECON 555 African Economic Development (5)
SW 510 International Social Workand Social Welfare (4)
ANTH 555 Medical Anthropology (5)
ANTH 581 Cultures of sub-Saharan Africa (5)
GEOG 684C Seminar: Africa (5)

Group 3
HLTH 512 International Health Programming (4)
HLTH 607 Health Promotionand Health Behavior (4)
HLTH 614 Public Health Services in Under-served Rural Populations (4)
HLTH 616 Health Care and People of Africa (4)
**HLTH 650 Practicum (4)

*Requires a prerequisite of ECON 550 (5 hours)
**For student who may want to have Community Health experience in Africa


Program Contact
Matthew Adeyanju
740.593.4675
adeyanju@ohio.edu