Before participating in the Public Health in Ghana program this summer, Master of Public Health (MPH) student Katie Beeman had never traveled internationally. With a year of classes under her belt, Beeman challenged herself to go beyond the online classroom to learn what public health looks like in a new environment. She looks back at her experience and shares what she’s learned.
A Little Push that Led to a Change in Perspective
I never pictured myself going on the Ghana practicum experience during my first year in the MPH program. I didn’t give it any thought at all until I met the program leader, Dr. Connie Currier. Her passion and excitement for the program led me to sign up, and pushed me out of my comfort zone because at the time I had never traveled outside of the U.S. I wanted to learn and experience a new culture with someone familiar with the environment. Talking with fellow public health students made me really excited for the trip and made it all start to feel real. I was really going to a new country with new people!
Our trip was filled with many adventures, one of them being our research on the menstrual health of school-aged girls in Hohoe, Ghana. We collaborated with the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) to conduct the post-intervention qualitative research on menstrual cup use, as a continuation of last year’s practicum experience. Our team conducted focus groups, with the help of UHAS MPH students, to understand school-aged female participants’ experience with menstrual cup use.
We also conducted one-on-one interviews with teachers to understand their perspectives and observations. After data collection, we cleaned the transcripts from the focus groups and interviews, then completed a thematic analysis to identify challenges, benefits, and influences on menstrual cup use in this specific population. We reported back our findings through professional presentations (for UHAS faculty, staff, and students) and community presentations (for students, their families, and community members).
There were so many memorable parts of this experience: an energizing drum concert, a 7.5-hour hike up Wli Falls, and cooking with the UHAS students. Cooking and sharing meals was so much fun, mainly because of my love of food and trying new cuisines. They taught us how to make local dishes like kelewele (fried plantains), red red (bean stew), and jollof (rice dish). On the Cape Coast, we visited a slave castle, which was a very heavy but necessary day. That part of Ghana’s history was hard to see, but it was essential to understand the influences on local culture and ways of life entirely.
I was grateful to meet so many kind people and experience the culture of a place that loves its country and its people so much.
This trip reminded me of how rewarding stepping out of my comfort zone is. I was so nervous to fly to a new country for the first time with a group of people that I barely knew. Still, I couldn’t have imagined all the wonderful relationships and truly life-changing experiences I gained on this trip.
The connections I made on this trip helped me feel like I’ve built a community in the MPH program. I would highly recommend this program to any MPH student who wants to start expanding their cultural competence and worldview through this once-in-a-lifetime experience in Ghana.
I am so thankful for that first interaction with Dr. Currier because it was the little push I needed to go on this trip that forever changed my perspective on public health and what it means to engage with communities that are different from my own.
June 24, 2025
