title: US medical specialty global health training and the global burden of disease.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Rapid growth in global health activity among US medical specialty education programs has lead to heterogeneity in types of activities and global health training models. The breadth and scope of this activity is not well chronicled.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using a standardized search protocol, we examined the characteristics of US medical residency global health programs by number of programs, clinical specialty, nature of activity (elective, research, extended curriculum based field training), and geographic location across seven different clinical medical residency education specialties. We tabulated programmatic activity by clinical discipline, region and country. We calculated the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient to estimate the association between programmatic activity and country-level disease burden.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 1856 programs assessed between January and June 2011, there were 380 global health residency training programs (20%) working in 141 countries. 529 individual programmatic activities (elective-based rotations, research programs, extended curriculum-based field training, or other) occurred at 1337 specific sites. The majority of the activities consisted of elective-based rotations. At the country level, disease burden had a statistically significant association with programmatic activity (Spearman's ρ = 0.17) but only explained 3% of the total variation between countries.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There were a substantial number of US medical specialty global health programs, but a relative paucity of surgical and mental health programs. Elective-based programs were more common than programs that offer longitudinal experiences. Despite heterogeneity, there was a small but statistically significant association between program location and the global burden of disease. Areas for further study include the degree to which US-based programs develop partnerships with their program sites, the significance of this activity for training, and number and breadth of programs in medical specialty global health education in other countries around the world.
authors.affiliation: Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA ; Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass, USA ; Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA.
authors.forename: Vanessa B
authors.initials: VB
authors.lastname: Kerry
authors.affiliation: Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA ; Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Mass, USA ; Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA ; Center for AIDS Research, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass, USA.
authors.forename: Rochelle P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Walensky
authors.affiliation: Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA ; Chester M. Pierce, MD Division of Global Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA.
authors.forename: Alexander C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, Mass, USA ; Department of Otology and Laryngology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass, USA.
authors.forename: Regan W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Bergmark
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA.
authors.forename: Brian A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Bergmark
authors.affiliation: Boston University, Boston, Mass, USA.
authors.forename: Chaturia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rouse
authors.affiliation: Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA ; Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass, USA ; Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA ; Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Mass, USA ; Center for AIDS Research, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass, USA ; Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda.
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Bangsberg