Individual Course
Global Health Delivery
Course Length
11 weeks
8–10 hours a week
Featuring faculty from:
Harvard Medical School
Enroll as Individual
Certificate Price:
$ 1,940
Apply by Apr 21, 2026
Apply NowEnroll as Individual
Certificate Price:
$ 1,940
Apply by Apr 21, 2026
Apply NowDrive global healthcare transformation with an understanding of the challenges facing healthcare delivery and the factors influencing health and disease.
Access to healthcare is the greatest challenge in effectively managing and improving global health delivery.
The Global Health Delivery online short course from Harvard's Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning (VPAL) provides you with an introduction to the biggest factors impacting health and disease management, in both emerging and established nations. Over 10 weeks, you’ll examine real-world case studies from around the globe to investigate approaches to fighting Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and MDR-TB, and understand the burden of mental health. Guided by industry experts, you’ll explore the roles that foreign aid and governing structures play in facilitating healthcare solutions and assess how ideologies, problem framing, and the choice of metrics shape health policy. Learn how to build your own global health intervention for implementation across public and private settings.
The course will be delivered via Get Smarter .By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
Instructor-Paced
Get Smarter
Global Learning Community
- Learning Outcome
Develop an action plan to implement health interventions in your particular context
- Learning Outcome
Use a biosocial framework to assess how biological and social factors influence the spread of disease
- Learning Outcome
Understand the restrictions and challenges facing healthcare delivery
About the certificate
Learn about global health delivery across public and private settings and earn an official premier certificate from Harvard’s Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning (VPAL), in association with HarvardX.
Assessment is continuous and based on a series of practical assignments completed online. In order to be issued with a digital certificate, you’ll need to meet the requirements outlined in the course handbook. The handbook will be made available to you as soon as you begin the course.
Your digital certificate will be issued in your legal name and sent to you upon successful completion of the course, as per the stipulated requirements.
Faculty
Your Instructor
Salmaan Keshavjee
Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard University; Director, Harvard Medical School Center for Global Health Delivery – Dubai
Dr. Keshajvee is the Director of Harvard Medical School’s Center for Global Health Delivery and Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). He has worked extensively with Partners In Health on the treatment multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB) in Tomsk, Siberia and MDRTB and HIV in Lesotho. Dr. Keshavjee has also served as the chair of the World Health Organization’s Green Light Committee Initiative for MDRTB.
Your Instructor
Arthur Kleinman
Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor, Anthropology Department, Harvard University
Dr. Kleinman is the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor in the Anthropology Department in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, a Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the Victor and William Fung Director of Harvard University’s Asia Center. Dr. Kleinman is a pioneering figure in medical anthropology and author of numerous influential works. Trained as a psychiatrist, Dr. Kleinman has devoted his life to understanding illness experience, mental health and stigma, and forms of care and caregiving globally with special focus on China.
Your Instructor
Anne E. Becker
Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Becker is the Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Becker combines clinical, ethnographic, and epidemiologic methods in her work. She has researched eating pathology, suicide, and other youth health risk behaviors in Fiji and is currently conducting a mental health research capacity building project and novel school-based youth mental health pilot intervention in central Haiti. Dr. Becker also served on the APA’s DSM-5 Eating Disorders Work Group.
Your Instructor
Paul Farmer
Kolokotrones University Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Paul Farmer was the Kolokotrones University Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and the Co-founder of Partners In Health. Dr. Farmer began a lifelong commitment to Haiti in 1983. He wrote extensively on health and human rights and the role of social inequalities in distribution and outcome of infectious disease. In addition, Dr. Farmer developed novel, community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings around the globe.
"The online course really opened my eyes to global health issues. I was so excited to learn about the different scenarios on how countries have managed to offer improved health services, especially the Rwanda experience. I also enjoyed the video session of real situations, and was able to relate to most of them. As a person working in public health, I know this course has taken me to another level of understanding how public health, global health, and international health are linked. The course is ideal for those who work with communities and in primary healthcare delivery. I enjoyed the discussions with colleagues, which made me understand what is happening in other countries."
Ellen Munemo
Program Director