Lessons from Ebola: Preventing the Next Pandemic
Learn the implications for future health systems
Join Harvard faculty in understanding the context for the Ebola outbreak: What went right, what went wrong, and how we can all do better.
3–5 hours a week
What You'll Learn
Like no other event in recent history, the 2014 Ebola outbreak has made clear the fragility of existing health systems. While responding to the current epidemic is critical, we also have an opportunity to learn lessons to prevent the next global health catastrophe, forge partnerships across borders and disciplines, and demonstrate our commitment to value all human lives.
This four-week course provides the context in which to understand the Ebola outbreak -- why now, and why did so many people suffer and die? The course lays out the global governance structure -- what was the global response supposed to look like, and where did it fail?
The course will feature practitioners, experts, and scholars who will focus on cultivating a better understanding of the Ebola epidemic and implications for future health systems to ensure that the world is more effective in preventing the next pandemic.
The course will be delivered via edX and connect learners around the world. By the end of the course, participants will learn:
- What happened during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa?
- What were the local challenges faced by patients, clinicians, and national policy makers?
- Why did the international response fail to halt Ebola and prevent its spread?
- How do we prevent the next the pandemic?
Your Instructor
Ashish K. Jha, M.D., M.P.H. is Director for the Harvard Global Health Institute, K.T. Li Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a practicing Internal Medicine physician at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System.
Dr. Jha’s research interests lie in improving the quality and costs of healthcare delivery systems with a specific focus on the impact of policy efforts. His work has focused on a broad set of issues including how best to measure and improve quality, the role of information technology, transparency, and financial incentives to improve care, and how leadership and management are central to the delivery of high value healthcare.
With a strong body of research on the US health system, he founded the Harvard Initiative on Global Health Quality (HIGHQ) in 2014 through which he has worked around the globe to support the design and evaluation of policies aimed at improving care quality.
Ways to take this course
When you enroll in this course, you will have the option of pursuing a Verified Certificate or Auditing the Course.
A Verified Certificate costs $149 and provides unlimited access to full course materials, activities, tests, and forums. At the end of the course, learners who earn a passing grade can receive a certificate.
Alternatively, learners can Audit the course for free and have access to select course material, activities, tests, and forums. Please note that this track does not offer a certificate for learners who earn a passing grade.