"I wanted to be a responsible public health professional": applying serious games for deep learning in global health courses

Serious games, including simulations, are increasingly used in university teaching, including medical and humanitarian studies as well as political science and international relations. There is less evidence of application in global health pedagogy. This article reports and reflects on the application of a simulation of negotiations around a global pandemic treaty in a Master of Public Health class on Global Health and International Affairs. Through participant observation and thematic analysis of students reflective essays we find that the simulation enabled deep learning in line with the assignment objectives (to apply learning from past health crisis, engage with key concepts, and experience global health cooperation and challenges), as well as prompted critical reflections on moral dilemmas related to global health cooperation and decolonizing global health. The simulation provided an opportunity for students to engage with the wicked problems embedded within global health by drawing on multiple perspectives and approaches. While the students failed in negotiating a successful pandemic treaty, it was these failures that provided opportunities for deep learning and critical reflection as they questioned constraints on their underlying motivations and actions. This experience suggests simulations can serve as a particularly apt approach for teaching interdisciplinary approaches to global health as they enable to students to apply different sets of knowledge to a particular problem, explore unfamiliar concepts and critically asses their assumptions.