Introduction Global Health (GH) refers to issues that transcend borders and national governments, demanding actions from global powers, which determine the health of different communities [1]. It involves knowledge, teaching, practice, and research on extraterritorial health issues which extrapolate national geographic borders [2]. GH teaching involves integrated courses, which can be offered within social sciences, considering the transnational aspects of health issues [3, 4] while valuing the context and local capacity to act. In the Americas, the interest in GH as an academic discipline has increased in the last decade. This is due to the growing acknowledgement of GH as a fundamental issue in health training, enabling undergraduate and graduate students to better understand the global priority agenda and its demands [5]. Human resources are central aspects for the success of GH strategies; however, there is no consensus on how to plan experiential activities to prepare students to act locally and globally and to serve as global health professionals. Furthermore, cultural diversities in the Americas (North, Central, and South) enrich GH teaching and may become a challenge for the different actors involved in these processes. This study aims to analyse approaches, characteristics, and challenges faced by educational programs on global health in the Americas. Methods This is a scoping review, with the aim of mapping relevant scientific production and gaps on a specific theme, in this case, education of health professionals [6], following this sequence: 1) identifying the research question; 2) finding relevant studies; 3) selecting the studies; 4) organizing the data; and 5) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results, according to The Joanna Brigs Institute for Scoping Reviews. The search strategy used was PICo (P: problem/population; I: intervention; Co: context), in which P: educational programs on global health; I: approaches, characteristics, and challenges; Co: Americas. This resulted in the following research question: What are the approaches, characteristics, and challenges faced by educational programs on global health in the Americas? The inclusion criteria were: primary studies, full text available in Spanish, Portuguese, or English and published up to November 2017. Book chapters, Master's and doctoral final reports, as well as other technical reports were included in the initial search. Data collection took place between November 2017 and March 2018.