Volunteers may serve in a healthcare system either as regional health educators or as community health or nutrition promoters. Collaborating with host country counterparts on education, awareness, and other relevant projects, Volunteers encourage community members to adopt behaviors that promote health, prevent illness, treat disease and facilitate rehabilitation.

Volunteers teach public health in classrooms and model methodologies and subjects for primary and secondary school teachers. Projects include undertaking "knowledge, attitude, and practice" surveys in communities; assisting clinics or government planning offices in identifying health education needs; devising educational programs to address local health conditions; assisting in marketing messages aimed at improving local health practices; performing epidemiological studies; and serving as backup professionals for other health Volunteers.

Education

Applicants must have a bachelor's degree in health education, nutrition, dietetics, or another health-related discipline; or a master's degree in public health; or be a registered nurse certified in public health or midwifery or a certified physician's assistant.

Experience

Most applicants have been active in health-related activities on a volunteer basis in college or their community, working, for example, as peer nutritionists, AIDS or STD counselors, or resident advisors in dormitories. Many are pre-med students who have shadowed doctors in hospitals.

Other relevant experience includes expertise in disease surveillance, creative training and adult education techniques, and community entry and survey methods.