Department of Global Health and Population
We teach students how to effectively respond to key health challenges impacting populations around the world through outstanding teaching and research. Our expertise includes health systems and economics; global nutrition; maternal and child health; infectious and non-communicable diseases; and humanitarian studies and population ethics.
665 Huntington Avenue
Building 1
Boston, MA 02115
Who We Are
We are a community of students, educators, researchers, and practitioners from around the world who work together to produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere.
Our programs and projects span the globe and we offer several opportunities for students to take an international travel course. Through distinctive teaching, and exceptional research, we strive to advance global health and population studies. We have long-standing and recognized research excellence in fields such as Maternal & Child Health; Nutrition; Decision Science; Behavioral Economics and Implementation Sciences; Population Bioethics, Humanitarian Studies and Human Rights; and Health Systems.
- The Department of Global Health and Population (GHP) seeks to improve global health through education, research, and service from a population-based perspective. The 21st century has arrived with a complex set of demographic patterns, disease burdens, and health policies. These create challenges that affect all societies, rich and poor, developed and developing. The department’s approach to these problems combines the analysis of population and health using quantitative and qualitative methods, the investigation of policies that affect health, and a concern with the politics and ethics of health and development.
- We are the first department of population sciences in any school of public health, and for more than 60 years, faculty members, students, and researchers in our department have helped shape the field and launched some of the major ideas in global public health and population sciences.
- Through our master’s and doctoral degrees, the Department of Global Health and Population is home to students developing expertise in areas such as health systems design, management, and evaluation; health economics; global nutrition; maternal and child health; global infectious and non-communicable diseases; and humanitarian studies and population ethics. Our research and teaching has a unique foundation in what we call global health methods — including competency in various quantitative and qualitative methods that we apply to the study of various problems and solutions.
- Our faculty works continuously to strengthen our educational offerings, to stimulate new research, and to build an intellectual community. Our array of term-time courses, winter-term and summer international experiences, and special events offer a comprehensive portfolio of learning opportunities for our valued student and postdoc community.
What Sets Us Apart
- We improve global health through education, research, and service from a population-based perspective. We work to find and analyze solutions to some of today’s biggest public health challenges, ranging from health system reform to infectious disease control in low- and middle-income countries to HIV prevention.
- We have a global footprint with faculty, researchers, and staff present in all regions of the world. Our department is renowned for its unique and diverse background, and we have welcomed students and fellows from most countries in the world. Currently, GHP students hail from more than 30 countries and faculty members are actively conducting research in more than 60 countries.
- Our alumni are part of a strong network of public health experts working to devise, implement, and evaluate effective strategies that improve the lives of millions of people around the globe. Our students and fellows have become ministers of health, leaders in national and international public health organizations, and scholars in academic institutions.
Our department features plenty of opportunities to engage in cross-Harvard collaboration.
Students traveled abroad to participate in the Harvard Amazon Rainforest Immersion, a ten day course in Brazil offered by David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability.
This is one of the many opportunities to study abroad and learn from our faculty in a hands on environment. Learn more about our upcoming Winter semester courses in Chile, Brazil and Japan.
Our History
Our department was established in 1962 as the Department of Demography and Human Ecology, the first department dedicated to the study of population problems with a focus on global health in any school of public health. Since then, our faculty members, students, and researchers have helped shape the field and launched innovative ideas in program evaluation, decision science, ecology of infectious diseases, maternal and child health, health economics, global burden of diseases, ethical issues in public health, and humanitarian issues. For example, in the 1960s, faculty member Roger Revelle suggested that unplanned population growth was more of a consequence of underdevelopment than the cause of it—a radical idea at the time.
We have also worked with China, India, and other nations around the world, assisting and advising their governments on varied public health issues, including health systems reform across nearly every continent.
Some of the most influential scholars of population sciences and global health have been members of our department, including Nathan Keyfitz, author of the foremost text on the application of demographic models, and Michael Reich, Marc Roberts, William Hsiao, and Peter Berman, whose book, Getting Health Reform Right: A Guide to Improving Performance and Equity, continues to serve as a basic text for courses on health systems around the world.
Photo Gallery
Department Chair
Our People
The department’s faculty are leaders in producing ideas that improve the lives and health of people around the world. Our research scientists, associates and fellows collaborate with faculty to design, implement, and evaluate strategies that seek to address global health challenges and our staff are dedicated to ensuring that our programs, research, and students are able to thrive.
Degree Programs
Master of Science – Global Health and Population
Designed to prepare individuals to advance global health research and reduce the burden of disease, especially in the world’s most vulnerable populations
Master of Public Health – Global Health
Provides students with the intellectual foundation and specialized skills they need to lead change and make a difference in communities around the world.
Doctor of Philosophy – Population Health Sciences
A cohort-based, multidisciplinary degree that provides students with the research and analytical tools needed to tackle a wide range of complex, large-scale public health issues
