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Recipient of the 2015 Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) Panorama Award for Outstanding International Education, and recognized as a 'standout program' in Toronto Star Magazine, the MSc Global Health prepares graduates for careers in a globalized world. The program—a joint offering with Maastricht University in The Netherlands—brings together faculties of social sciences, health sciences, business and humanities, and links with institutions across multiple continents.
Together with our growing network of global partners, we are working in support of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Learn more about our network of partners.
The Global Health program is committed to equity, diversity and inclusion. Annually, the program attracts students from around the world who bring a diverse range of cultural perspectives. In the 2020-2021 academic year, students represented over 25 different countries and cultures. For more information about the program and the university’s commitment to supporting diversity and inclusion, please refer to McMaster’s EDI Strategy. To further support and ensure equitable admissions, we outline a facilitated admissions process for First Nations, Inuit and Métis applicants that can be found here.
Over 12 months, students gain the skills and experience required for leadership careers within key international health organizations, government and non-government agencies, and the private sector.
The program follows the 'McMaster Model'—student-centred, problem-based learning (PBL)—which has been adopted by universities around the world. What makes it unique is its transcontinental approach. The program combines in-person classroom experiences with online collaboration in virtual teams, and mobility to The Netherlands, Colombia and Norway in the winter term for eligible students. The program offers educational opportunities in different languages, specifically within the Foundations 1 and Foundations 2 courses where groups may operate in French or Spanish, depending on enrolment.
Using Canvas, MS Teams, Zoom, Google+ Hangouts and Avenue to Learn among other online learning tools, lectures are delivered to students in the classroom at McMaster while broadcasting it to students in The Netherlands, Norway, India, Thailand, Colombia, and Sudan. This immersive learning environment fosters internationalization at home or abroad and builds career skills for a globalized world.
You will have the opportunity to specialize in one of the program's seven Fields of Study offered at McMaster or via an outbound mobility option:
From international flows of capital, to the role of corporations, to global social movements, this field examines how the ebb and flow of globalizing processes affect politics and policies, economic development, trade, health, health care, and education around the globe. You will investigate and learn about the socio-economic and political moorings that inform and shape global health. You will acquire career-relevant skills relating to policy analysis and formulation in a global context.
You will learn about the business of global health, developing essential knowledge related to health, health care, economic development and education viewed through the disciplinary lenses of the business of health systems. You will acquire career-relevant skills ranging from healthcare marketing to strategic and financial decision-making at a macro level.
You will study critical challenges within global health from a health sciences perspective. Learning from a network of leading professionals, you will examine the threat to public health from existing, new, and re-emerging diseases that spread through immigration, travel, and global trade.
For more information, visit their Program Website
For more information, visit their Program Website
For more information, visit their Program Website
For more information, visit their Program Website.
The culmination of the program is the Global Health Symposium/Field Orientation in India (conditions permitting), where students from partner universities present their research, receiving critical feedback from health policy-makers, activists, and expert researchers in the global health field. At the symposium, students:
Following the symposium, course-based students branch off to complete global health work-integrated learning practicums while thesis students continue their thesis research and begin preparing for defense.
The Global Health Advisory Board—with Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands as Honorary Chair, provides ongoing stewardship to the program. Made up of leaders from the business world, international NGOs and healthcare consultancies as far-spread as Japan, Africa and Switzerland, the board oversees the partnership between McMaster and Maastricht and provides the program’s strategic direction.
The MSc Global Health program is delivered through a network of partner universities. These partner universities provide a broad field of expertise, and the opportunity to interact with expert researchers who are active in globalization and international health. Partner institutions include:
Learn more about the network of partners.
The program is 12 months, held over three terms: Fall, Winter, and Spring/Summer. Courses run through the Fall and Winter Terms; the Winter Term culminates with a two-week international Learning Symposium / Field Orientation in Manipal, India, conditions permitting. During the subsequent Spring/Summer Term, course-based students complete a global health work-integrated learning practicum and scholarly paper while thesis students work on their dissertation. Thesis students will often extend into the following Fall and Winter Terms.
No. Given the intensity of a 12-month MSc program, students must be prepared to make a full-time commitment.
For the 2020-2021 academic year, all classes are taught online in synchronous and asynchronous modes.