Educating and Training the Department of Defense Workforce for Global Health Engagement to Support the Geographic Combatant Commands

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marquis, Jefferson P.

Contributor:

Brahmbhatt, Trupti

Clark-Ginsberg, Aaron

Smith, Victoria M.

Thaler, David E.

Language:

English

Place of Publication:

RAND Corporation 2023

Summary:

The importance of global health to U.S. national security was brought into sharp relief when the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic expanded exponentially in 2020 and inflicted serious and prolonged harm to the world's populations, economies, and political systems. For many national security experts, this recognition of global health's importance coincided with a belief in the value of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) global health engagement (GHE), which encompasses a range of sometimes overlapping activities in the areas of force protection; humanitarian assistance and foreign disaster relief; nuclear, chemical, and biological defense; and building partner capacity and interoperability. However, DoD is constrained in its ability to conduct GHE activities by limitations in the way the department, as a whole, organizes, manages, and resources GHE activities and develops its workforce for GHE. Using a systematic review of the GHE literature, discussions with more than 80 subject-matter experts and officials, a review of materials from nearly 70 GHE-relevant blocks of instruction, and two GHE stakeholder workshops, the authors developed key findings and policy recommendations with respect to target student populations, GHE competencies, professional development pathways, GHE courses and course providers, and instructional strategies. In addition, they developed a concept for integrating the major GHE education and training (E&T) components and a prioritized framework for implementing the policy recommendations. This report should be of interest to members of DoD's GHE community, as well as officials and policy analysts in the larger DoD medical/health and security cooperation communities.