On this program you will take one 3-credit course "Public Health Threats in Suriname: From Ecosystem to Human Health"
The course will provide students an opportunity to learn about global public health and environmental health threats in a developing country. Students will experience how public health threats, opportunities and health systems differ, and how local public health and global health are interconnected.
This course features trans-disciplinary science, practice, and policy approaches to addressing public health issues affecting environmental and human health. We will examine key public health issues affecting the health of Suriname’s ecosystem and its population, including the leading causes of morbidity and mortality. Through a series of lectures and fieldtrips, students will learn about the role of the ecosystem as a vital component of community health. Each lecture is accompanied by required reading as designated in the syllabus and grading requirements are specified for the course. Fieldtrips and service learning are an integral part of the course to facilitate application on the public health practice frontline. A special area of focus will be the medicinal characteristics of plants. The course will also focus on the risks posed by environmental contamination, specifically those risks related to mercury released from some small-scale gold mining operations. Students will employ community-based participatory research strategies to assess, manage, and communicate those risks.
As natives of Suriname and a graduates of the Anton De Kom University of Suriname (AdeKUS), Faculty of Medical Sciences, the instructors including Dean Lichtveld have first-hand knowledge of the overall environmental and public health issues of the Suriname population. The Pitt faculty will also be joined by leading professors from the Faculty of Medical Sciences of AdeKUS, local experts in areas such as toxicology, pharmacology, and ecosystem science, and governmental officials. In addition, the students will learn of traditional healing from local community experts.
Oksana Stalczynski
Privet! I'm Oksana Stalczynski and I'm an Assistant Director of Study Abroad at the Global Experiences Office. I was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, was an exchange student and Russian Language Scholar at Reed College in Portland, OR and did a summer language program in Dresden, Germany. Global experiences broaden your horizon, grow your circle of friends and improve your career opportunities. That’s why I think everyone should do one!
Feel free to contact me to find out more about global experiences programs at Pitt, and/or to learn/practice some Russian.
Maureen Lichtveld
Maureen Lichtveld, MD, MPH, is dean of the Graduate School of Public Health, where she oversees the growth and continued success of the school’s seven academic departments and hundreds of students, faculty, and staff. She also serves as professor of environmental and occupational health and is the Jonas Salk Professor of Population Health.
Dr. Lichtveld studies environmental public health, focusing on environmentally induced disease, health disparities, environmental health policy, disaster preparedness, public health systems, and community resilience. Her research examines the cumulative impact of chemical and non-chemical stressors on communities facing environmental health threats, disasters, and health disparities.
Before joining Pitt in January 2021, Dr. Lichtveld chaired Tulane University’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. She also directed the Center for Gulf Coast Environmental Health Research, Leadership, and Strategic Initiatives within Tulane’s public health and tropical medicine school. In this role, Dr. Lichtveld led development and implementation of disaster management, health promotion, and disease-prevention strategies for Gulf Coast communities. Prior to her arrival at Tulane in 2005, Dr. Lichtveld spent 18 years with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, where she designed public health research tools and protocols to guide environmental health studies in communities located near hazardous waste sites.
Dr. Lichtveld is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a member of the board of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health. She received her MPH from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Hygiene and Public Health and her MD from Anton de Kom University of Suriname and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
Firoz Abdoel Wahid
Firoz Abdoel Wahid is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the EOH Department of the Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh. He is a native from Suriname where he graduated as a family physician in 2005, and as Master’s in Public Health in 2012. He has over 15-year experience in public health, the last eight of which in environmental health. His public health career started in 2005 as the clinical coordinator of the National AIDS Program in Suriname. He pursued his doctorate in environmental health in 2018 at Tulane University, New Orleans. Dr. Abdoel Wahid is part of the Caribbean Consortium for Research in Environmental and Occupational Health that is focused on the impact of chemical and non-chemical stressors on birth outcomes. He has a long-standing history of teaching, and has trained and mentored frontline healthcare workers in Suriname, as well as medical, physical therapy and public health students. His areas of expertise include global environmental health research, research training, and climate and health impact on vulnerable populations.