Promoting equity in global health partnerships: Enduring lessons learned from a global health symposium

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored inequities in global health partnerships, and the seismic changes that have been shaking the global health landscape since January 2025 further threaten equity. This article offers insights for mitigating inequities by reflecting on the proceedings of a global health symposium. The hybrid symposium was held on September 28–29, 2023, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the United States. To reflect on lessons learned from the symposium, we used a mixed methods approach, quantitatively summarizing findings from a post-symposium survey and qualitatively analyzing session notes. Synthesis of findings was guided by a priori use of a framework developed for global health leadership training (e.g., respectful and reciprocal partnerships or commitment to joint learning). For the post-symposium survey, we calculated the mean and standard deviation for Likert-scale item responses. We used inductive coding with thematic analysis for the session notes to identify dominant themes. The symposium was attended by 444 attendees, including 58 presenters (40% from low- and middle-income countries), with most attendees (73%) residing in North America. Survey respondents (n = 76) generally found the symposium worth attending and accessible, and noted reciprocal innovations and equity in funding as most impactful topic sessions. Themes from session notes centered on 4 dimensions of global health partnerships: (1) training and mentorship, (2) public health and clinical practice, (3) research, and (4) community engagement. Key elements from our a priori framework were highlighted throughout these 4 dimensions. Additionally, we identified 3 emergent cross-cutting themes (leadership, funding, and liberation) as critical for enhancing global health partnership equity. The symposium identified ongoing inequities in global health partnerships and highlighted the following areas for future investment: leadership development, funding transparency, and decolonization as cross-cutting strategies to mitigate inequities. Centering communities was noted as critical to improving equity across dimensions, with liberation identified as the ultimate goal of global health. These themes are ever more salient as we grow and sustain global health programs beyond 2025.