Division of Women’s Global & Community Health
In the Division of Women’s Global and Community Health at NYU Langone Health, we offer an innovative and comprehensive approach to women’s global and community health training. We combine global health education, outreach, and research to provide a robust and critical approach to women’s healthcare in New York City and globally. Through our division, our faculty and residents are positioned to work closely with our global health partners in New York City, Latin America, and Africa to co-develop and co-implement evidence-based care and research initiatives to improve women’s healthcare across the life spectrum.
Under the guidance of Taraneh Shirazian, MD, division director, our faculty and division trainees are positioned to become women’s health advocates who will serve as the healthcare leaders of tomorrow in national and global women’s healthcare.
Our Role in Global Health Education
Our faculty play an active role in training for medical students, residents, and fellows.
Training for Medical Students
We provide lectures for students as part of the Global Health Initiatives program and also serve as preceptors for interested medical students during their six-week summer research selective in obstetrics and gynecology. Our faculty is also committed to providing career and research mentorship for medical students interested in women’s community and global health.
Training for Residents
Through lectures, clinical and research electives, and journal clubs, our residents learn how biological, environmental, and societal pressures and resources affect women’s health, pregnancy and reproductive health outcomes, and long-term survival—locally as well as globally. Additionally, Dr. Shirazian has written the first global women’s health handbook for medical providers, Around the Globe for Women’s Health: A Practical Guide for the Health Care Provider, published by Springer, which serves as a textbook for our global health curriculum. Our residents also learn the importance of public health initiatives in generating long-term solutions in women’s health, including obstetric health, women’s rights, gender-based violence, family planning and contraception, female circumcision, obstetric fistula, and maternal mortality.
As a division, we emphasize the importance of collaboration among global health programs and partners in our education initiatives. Through these collaborations and partnerships, participants learn the complexity in generating solutions to international health issues and how current public health strategies are aimed at affecting change for women around the world. There has never been a more important time to learn about global healthcare and how it mirrors much of our local needs in health outreach for underserved communities.
Training for Fellows
Health equity, policy development, and clinical research are combined with clinical training as we prepare fellows for their roles as obstetric and gynecologic leaders within the global health space. To do so, our fellows, together in community, engage in health equity, social medicine, health systems strengthening, leadership, and advocacy training.
Our fellows dedicate two years to living and working abroad as well as working in the underserved communities of New York City to co-create solutions and develop relationships that last well beyond the fellowship to help enact sustainable change for the women they serve. Fellows also hold a faculty position within the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. To learn more about the fellowship, contact Dr. Shirazian and Dr. Sasha Hernandez, our inaugural Women’s Global and Community Health fellow.
Our Role in Global Health Outreach
Global health outreach is about collaborative healthcare that is sustainable for local communities. To this end, we partner with our nationally renowned medical school, other departments within NYU Langone Health, and other nongovernmental organizations and programs that have robust relationships with the countries they serve, including Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Kenya, and Ghana. Among them is Saving Mothers, a nonprofit founded in 2009 by Dr. Shirazian that is dedicated to eradicating preventable maternal deaths and birth-related complications in low-resource settings. Having worked in various development contexts as an obstetrician–gynecologist, Dr. Shirazian believes that tackling the most intractable inequalities in maternal health demands an integrative, global vision for care that values women’s lives equally, regardless of their location or ability to pay.
Residents and medical students can choose from vetted programs and sites that offer sustainable health outreach for women. You spend elective time (two to four weeks) with global communities, where you learn firsthand about the complex medical issues women face, participate directly in patient care, learn about the cultural sensitivities of healthcare, and are part of programs and research designed to improve women’s lives.
Our Role in Research
We offer a vast opportunity to conduct robust research, and our division’s research is funded by both private, academic society, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants. Some research areas include obstetric protocols, gynecologic surgery, prenatal care, application of technology to the global setting, training of birth attendants, obstetrical simulation, and development of quality metrics. Residents and medical students can identify a research project as part of our longitudinal research and can understand firsthand how research, especially in the global context, is a platform for advocacy and can be used to improve health implementation challenges. Dr. Shirazian serves as faculty mentor and encourages the presentation of data at regional and national obstetrics and gynecology conferences.
