Announcement of an international opportunity for Public Health Master’s and PhD students

The Professor Judy Lewis and Stephen L. Schensul Fund, established in 2016, provides medical and public health students with financial support to participate in research and education experiences in underserved communities domestically or internationally. In this year, the Fund seeks to support a public health graduate student to be involved in research and education at Hanoi Medical University (HMU) in Vietnam.

In 2018, HMU and UConn signed a Memorandum of Agreement to support collaborative research, education and student exchange between the two universities. This relationship was the result of leadership by Toan Ha, MD, DrPH, assistant professor of Public Health Sciences at UConn Health and Nguyen Thi Thuy Hanh, MD, PhD, associate professor of Training, Scientific Management and International Collaboration at HMU. In May 2019, a contingent of seven UConn faculty visited HMU to further develop collaboration on topics of depression and diabetes, substance use, stroke and oral health and reproductive health and to expand public health education in both universities.

As a part of its Institute of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, HMU offers a Master’s program in Vietnamese and an International Master’s Program in English for students from low and middle-income countries. HMU faculty conduct a wide variety of research to contribute to national health and development programs.

This opportunity would involve a minimum of two months in Hanoi, starting from the beginning of June and and extending to the end of July. The research and educational components that would be available at HMU include:

• An orientation to Vietnam and the City of Hanoi
• An English language course in June on a public health topic as a part of the International Master’s program
• Consultation on student topical interest and available data from HMU faculty
• Selection of a secondary data set on a public health topic for analysis
• Follow-up with qualitative interviews in underserved communities in Hanoi to explore quantitative results, facilitated by a bilingual HMU student

Students can receive elective or independent study credits for this research and education experience. The student may also choose to do a paper for publication or to use the quantitative and qualitative data for their thesis. The student will live in a dormitory room on the HMU campus and receive $1700 from the fund to support airfare and living expenses..

Applications should be emailed to Professor Schensul (Schensul@uchc.edu) and are due by March 1, 2020. A complete application should include a CV and a cover letter that describes topical interests, past experiences in international and underserved communities and plans for the future. Preference will be given to students who have completed at least a year of graduate education in public health. Dr. Ha (Tha@uchc.edu) and Professors Lewis (Lewisj@uchc.edu) and Schensul (Schensul@uchc.edu) are available to answer specific questions by e-mail or by appointment.