URBAN GLOBAL HEALTH

The Urban Global Health initiative in the Department of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago provides educational, teaching and research activities domestically and globally to UIC students, residents, fellows and faculty. The UGH initiative has a strong focus on public health with the underlying goal of addressing and eliminating health disparities in underserved communities. In addition, the UGH initiative facilitates exchanges of trainees and students between UIC and international institutions.

Specific aims of the UGH initiative are to:

  • Provide training opportunities domestically and globally, with a focus on community health and underserved populations
  • Provide career and research mentorship to UIC trainees interested in public health
  • Promote scholarly activity in urban global health
  • Enhance curriculum in public health, research methods, and innovative service delivery

Current UGH projects:

  • University of Illinois at Chicago HIV/AIDS Community Clinic Network
  • Tropical Medicine Elective in the Dominican Republic
  • The South India Project
  • The Nepal Project

Become a Donor!

If you would like to make a donation in support of the UGH Initiative, you may do so here.  This year, donations will support the Tropical Medicine Elective in the Dominican Republic. 

DR Trip Drew

This two-week elective is offered to internal medicine residents from UIC and consists of educational activities and hospital rounds at the largest teaching hospital in the Dominican Republic. Find out about Sponsoring a Resident.

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The Urban Global Beat Fighting health disparities across the globe

Max Brito has strong connections to his homeland, the Dominican Republic.

These connections, from work in HIV prevention to exchange programs in medical education, are supported in part by the Urban Global Health initiative, which fights health disparities worldwide.

As associate professor of medicine and vice chair for urban global health in the department of medicine, Brito takes medical students and UI Health residents to the Dominican Republic for two weeks every year as part of a course in tropical disease.

“The goals are to expose students to how medicine is practiced in resource-poor settings, and to give them a chance to learn about tropical infectious diseases that are relatively uncommon in the United States,” Brito said.

In return, Dominican medical residents — 30 so far — come to UI Health for two-month rotations.

Brito recently completed a public health project that circumcised 454 men in the Dominican Republic to help prevent the spread of HIV, modeled on research in Kenya by Robert Bailey, professor of epidemiology.

UIC is working to establish a clinic in the Dominican Republic for the treatment of tropical diseases and sexually transmitted infections.

“The clinic will be multidisciplinary, and will welcome faculty and students from other UIC colleges who will bring their own perspectives to addressing clinical problems affecting poor Dominicans,” Brito said.

Donations to the Urban Global Health initiative can be made here.

Sponsor a Resident

Your $1,000 contribution will provide lodging, transportation and meals for one internal medicine resident to participate in the two-week tropical medicine elective in the Dominican Republic. Stockton

The internal medicine tropical medicine elective consists of a two-week program of educational and training activities at multiple prestigious institutions such as the Malaria Institute, Robert Reid Cabral Hospital and Salvador Gautier Hospital, the largest teaching hospital in the Dominican Republic.

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