USPHS GLOBAL HEALTH INITIATIVES SERVICE

The Global Health Initiatives Service Medal (GHISM) is the complement to the Global Health Campaign Medal (GHCM). The latter is awarded to officers from the United States Public Health Service’s Commissioned Corps in a Global Health Initiative assignment who serve outside the United States—i.e., a foreign-duty assignment—on either a temporary or permanent basis. The GHISM, on the other hands, is intended to recognize Corps officers who SUPPORT “a/any” Global Health Initiative Assignment for at least 30 consecutive or 60 non-consecutive days after January 26, 2005; the support can be carried out while on temporary or permanent assignment.
 
Commissioned Corps Instruction 511.01, Awards Program, defines support as “deploying and/or providing direct administrative, logistical, financial, or operational support to any Global Health Initiative or mission.” A period of service that meets or exceeds the 30-consecutive-days requirement is treated as a single service period and none of its days can be credited toward the alternate 60-nonconsecutive-days minimum. However, the “a/any” wording in the instruction makes it unclear if an officer could accumulate the 60 nonconsecutive days over several support assignments to earn a single GHISM for one of them. Also, officers eligible for the GHCM are not also eligible for the GHISM.
 
Personnel Operations Memorandum 12-005, dated 11 January 2012, lists deployments to the following missions as having been determined by the Surgeon General to be eligible for the GHISM. Note that this document lists the USS Peleliu as the USNS Peleliu, but the Peleliu never had the USNS designation.