Columbia Grads Study Chilean Healthcare Systems through Field Research

Two Columbia University graduate students, Zeqian Li, an epidemiology student at the Mailman School of Public Health, and Bryanna Godfrey, a medical student at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, are currently in Chile performing field practicums at Universidad Mayor’s Society & Health Research Center (CISS), where they are gaining firsthand experience in the Chilean healthcare system.

Upon their arrival, they visited the Santiago Center, where they received an orientation to Chile, including an overview of Chilean history and politics. Additionally, representatives from the Pan American Health Organization provided a detailed presentation on the public and private health systems in the country, explaining how they function and the challenges they face.

The field practicum, known as the applied practice experience, is a graduation requirement for students. It involves planned, supervised, and evaluated practice where students explore their areas of interest, gain practical skills, and apply classroom teachings. Universidad Mayor’s CISS has three main areas of research: social determinants and the life course of health and aging; social relations and social cohesion; and institutions and regulation from an international and comparative perspective.

While at CISS, Godfrey collaborates with assistant professor Antonia Díaz-Valdés on a cross-national analysis of depression among older adults, examining the effects of gender, age, and birth cohort on differences in depression within this population. “I’ve been working on a literature review of gender and age-related variations influence in depression rates.” “I’m also learning longitudinal analysis and multilevel modeling techniques needed for preliminary review of our cross-national data,” she explains. “Being at CISS has been great. I've learned so much about this topic and the techniques needed to approach the central research question. I'm excited to continue this work!”

Li, on the other hand, works with two mentors: CISS director Nicolás Montalva and assistant professor Diego Palacios. Their project focuses on identifying the economic support network among family members within households and understanding the factors that impact the flow of this support. She contributes to the team with the literature review and summarizing key findings. “Additionally, I am studying background knowledge of social network analysis to help me gain a better understanding of the methodology my mentors applied to analyze data,” she shares.

A strong partnership

In 2021, Columbia Mailman signed a memorandum of understanding with Universidad Mayor to further develop education and research collaborations in global health. This builds upon the foundation established between Mailman, the Santiago Center, and CISS. Under the leadership of CISS director, Esteban Calvo, who is also the Dean of Universidad Mayor’s School of Social Sciences and Arts and a Mailman faculty member, the “Building Healthier Societies” program was launched in 2018 to promote international research collaboration.

Since then, this collaboration has produced over 30 scientific publications focusing on aging and life course, mental health, substance use, and comparative public policies. It has also secured over US$750,000 in funded proposals to support research collaboration, and facilitated dozens of student and researcher exchanges. This includes nine students who performed virtual internships through a program developed by the Global Centers during the Covid-19 pandemic, which offered Columbia students working and learning opportunities despite travel restrictions. These students worked on topics including migration and Covid-19 in Chile, the effects of alcohol abuse in older adults, social isolation and loneliness, among other subjects.