John J. Sparkman Center for Global Health: The Sparkman Center was established in 1979 with a congressional appropriation through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The primary mission of the Center is to contribute to solutions of health problems in developing countries by fostering global public health education, research, and service activities in collaborations with academic institutions, international agencies, and health ministries in the host countries. The vision behind the establishment of the Sparkman Center was the recognition of the global nature of health problems, the impact of health on human development and the need for international collaboration in resolving major health issues of the time. 

Building on a successful history of international collaboration with partners in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, Center programs today both targets the development of UAB student and faculty global health capacity as well as the implementation of international training, research and education efforts.  Activities targeted towards UAB institutional audiences include: UAB Framework Program for Global Health; Sparkman Center Annual Public Health Symposium; Sparkman Center Seminar Series in Global Health; and Field Studies in Resource Limited Settings: Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control (Course in Jamaica).

The Center's International Collaborative Projects are with partner academic institutions focused in four countries: Jamaica, Peru, Ukraine, and Zambia.  These efforts are enhancing partner institutional infrastructure for teaching, research and service, as well as producing public health curricula and the enhancement of foreign partner public health knowledge and expertise.  The program uses an approach wherein platforms for education and research in public health are developed with partners at foreign sites, thereby supporting ongoing UAB work with international collaborators to build solutions for public health problems.

In the past year, both areas of concern-development of institutional capacity at home and abroad - has been advanced by a new UAB initiative in partnership with the Sparkman Center: the UAB Global Health Framework Program (http://www.soph.uab.edu/sparkman/default.aspx?id=13).  Supported by matching NIH funding, this initiative is increasing the number of faculty and student grants for exchanges at foreign sites, enhancing student mentorship opportunities, resulting in new global health courses across campus, among other activities.  

The Sparkman Center is located in the School of Public Health but supports faculty and staff across the UAB campus in its mission of "fostering global public health education, research, and service." More information on the Center is available at: www.uab.edu/sparkmancenter.