Peru: Global Health Perspectives
Lima • Sacred Valley • Cusco | 10-Day Faculty-Led Program
An Immersive Exploration of Health & Healthcare in Peru
Designed for students in public health, nursing, pre-health, medicine, social work, psychology, and related fields, this immersive program examines health and healthcare across Peru’s diverse urban, rural, and high-altitude environments.
Traveling from Lima to the Sacred Valley and Cusco, students explore how geography, culture, economics, infrastructure, and access shape health outcomes. Through engagement with healthcare professionals, community organizations, local experts, and cultural traditions, students compare approaches to health and wellbeing while considering the broader social determinants that influence who receives care and how.
What Students Explore
HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS & ACCESS | Compare healthcare delivery across urban and rural settings and examine the factors that influence access, quality, and continuity of care.
SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH | Explore how income, education, housing, geography, environment, and other social conditions influence individual and community health.
CULTURE & HEALTH | Consider how cultural beliefs, family, community, and traditional practices shape understandings of health, illness, treatment, and wellbeing.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT | Consider how infrastructure projects can balance economic development, environmental sustainability, and community needs.
INDIGENOUS ENGINEERING | Examine Incan and Andean approaches to agriculture, water, transportation, construction, and landscape management.
10-Day Itinerary
A Program, Built to Be Customized
This itinerary is designed to show what a Peru Global Health Perspectives program could look like. Specific healthcare visits, community engagements, guest speakers, and workshops will vary based on your program dates, group size, academic goals, and local availability.
We'll work with your faculty and study abroad team to adapt the program to your course objectives and students. Activities can place greater emphasis on public health, nursing, medicine, community health, health equity, psychology, nutrition, or another course-aligned theme.
Day 1 | Arrival & Introduction to Peru
Arrive in Lima and begin exploring health through a Peruvian cultural lens.
Meet your EdOdyssey Program Leader and travel to your accommodations. Participate in an orientation introducing Peru, cultural expectations, program themes, and responsible community engagement before gathering for a welcome dinner.
Sample Experiences:
Arrival orientation • Introduction to Peru • Global health framing • Welcome dinner
Day 2 | Lima: Healthcare in an Urban Environment
Meet with healthcare professionals, educators, or public health experts to gain an introduction to Peru's healthcare system and the challenges of providing care across public, private, and community settings.
Students compare Peru's healthcare landscape with systems they know at home while beginning to identify the social and structural factors influencing health outcomes.
Sample Experiences:
Healthcare professional engagement • Health system overview • Clinic or health organization visit • Comparative healthcare discussion
Day 3 | Community Health & Social Determinants
Engage with a community-based organization or local experts to examine how housing, education, employment, nutrition, environment, and access to resources affect health in Lima.
Students consider why improving health outcomes often requires interventions far beyond hospitals and clinics.
Sample Experiences:
Community organization visit • Social determinants of health • Public health discussion • Community-based learning
Day 4 | Lima to the Sacred Valley
Fly to Cusco and continue into the Sacred Valley, allowing time to acclimatize while learning about the geography, history, and communities of the region.
Begin exploring how altitude, distance, transportation, and access to resources influence everyday life and healthcare delivery in rural Peru.
Sample Experiences:
Flight to Cusco • Sacred Valley orientation • Altitude & health discussion • Andean communities
Day 5 | Rural & Community Health
Engage with a local health professional, community organization, or educational partner to explore rural healthcare and the barriers communities may face in accessing services.
Students consider how geography, staffing, transportation, language, economics, and cultural differences can affect healthcare delivery.
Sample Experiences:
Community health engagement • Rural healthcare • Health access • Local professional discussion • Guided reflection
Day 6 | Culture, Nutrition & Wellbeing
Learn about traditional crops, agriculture, nutrition, and local approaches to wellbeing. Engage with a community, farm, food producer, or local expert to examine how food systems and cultural knowledge contribute to health.
Students consider the relationship between nutrition, food security, biodiversity, economic development, and changing lifestyles.
Sample Experiences:
Andean agriculture • Nutrition & food systems • Traditional crops • Community engagement • Cultural perspectives on health
Day 7 | Machu Picchu & Human Adaptation
Travel to Machu Picchu and explore how Andean communities adapted to challenging geography through engineering, agriculture, community organization, and environmental knowledge.
Use the experience to broaden the program's conversation about human adaptation, physical environments, and wellbeing.
Sample Experiences:
Machu Picchu • Andean history • Human adaptation • Environmental health • Cultural heritage
Day 8 | Cusco: Traditional & Contemporary Approaches to Health
Return to Cusco and engage with local professionals or experts to examine the relationship between biomedical healthcare, Indigenous knowledge, traditional practices, family, and community.
Students consider how culturally responsive healthcare can build trust and improve outcomes when patients and providers may approach health through different perspectives.
Sample Experiences:
Cusco exploration • Traditional health perspectives • Indigenous knowledge • Cultural competency • Professional engagement
Day 9 | Global Health, Equity & Ethical Engagement
Participate in a final academic engagement or facilitated workshop focused on health equity, intercultural communication, and ethical global health.
Students reflect on what they have learned without positioning themselves as short-term healthcare providers, considering instead how listening, observation, partnership, and cultural humility should shape global health work.
Conclude with a farewell dinner.
Sample Experiences:
Global health ethics • Health equity • Cultural humility • Student reflection • Farewell dinner
Day 10 | Departure
Depart Cusco with a deeper understanding of how culture, geography, community, and structural conditions influence health and healthcare.
Sample Experiences:
Breakfast • Program reflection • Departure
Make this program your own
Start Here. Then Shape Around Your Course.
This itinerary is a starting point. Depending on your goals, we can place greater emphasis on areas such as:
Public Health
Health systems • Prevention • Community health • Social determinants
Nursing & Pre-Health
Healthcare delivery • Patient experience • Cultural competency
Health Equity
Access• Disparities• Rural health• Underserved communities
Nutrition & Food Systems
Traditional foods • Agriculture • Nutrition • Food security
Psychology & Wellbeing
Community • Culture • Family • Mental health • Wellbeing
Indigenous Health & Culture
Traditional knowledge • Intercultural health • Andean perspectives
Global Health Ethics
Cultural humility • Partnership • Responsible engagement
We can also adjust the program length, locations, professional visits, community engagement, cultural activities, reflection, accommodations, meals, and level of EdOdyssey Program Leader support.
Could this work for your students?
Use this program as your starting point or tell us what you’d change. We’ll work with you to align the itinerary with your course objectives, students, preferred dates, group size, and budget.
Have a different academic focus in mind?