News Byte: Center for Global Health Receives Prestigious AOA Recognition

Pictured: A future health-care provider meets with children on a past Center for Global Health trip to Ghana.

Each year, the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) recognizes individuals and organizations who have made significant contributions to the osteopathic medical profession through leadership, excellence, achievement, and dedication. This year, the NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine Center for Global Health was selected to receive the AOA’s prestigious Strategic Team Award and Recognition (STAR Award) in honor of the Center’s efforts to advance the principles and practice of osteopathic medicine. The team will be recognized in October, during a special session of the AOA House of Delegates.

“It is a great honor for the Center for Global Health to be selected as a recipient of the American Osteopathic Association Strategic Team Award and Recognition. This is a testament to the excellence and dedication of our faculty associates and the passion and drive of our student physicians,” said Lillian Niwagaba, Ph.D., director of the Center for Global Health. “Together, we are committed to tackling the global burden of disease and health disparities at home and abroad. As evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the health of the global community affects all of us. Global health is local health.”

The NYITCOM Center for Global Health is dedicated to developing healthcare professionals who are both empathetic leaders and change agents, ready to tackle the global burden of disease and health disparities at home and abroad. In addition to taking both medical students from NYITCOM and students from the School of Health Professions on service-learning trips to Ghana and Haiti, the Center has hosted informative lectures on global health crises such as COVID-19, and also hosted a competition aimed at solving some of the world’s most pressing public health challenges.