Engineering Capacity in Community-Based Healthcare
MIT's Edgerton Center offers this multidisciplinary seminar on global health challenges facing community-based healthcare programs in developing countries. Lectures from expert guests and guided readings introduce core issues, then case studies drawn from urban health programs in Zambia ground the discussion in specific problems: AIDS/HIV management, maternity care, health diagnostics, and information technology for patient tracking. Students from medicine, public health, engineering, management, and social sciences form multidisciplinary teams to design feasible solutions to the case-study challenges, with encouragement to continue the work after the seminar ends. No prior background is required, though relevant skills or experience are expected. Materials include the syllabus, readings, and case study documents through MIT OpenCourseWare, free to access under a Creative Commons license.