Major/Minor Courses
PH 216: Intro to Public Health
PH 3009 Introduction to the Health Humanities
HIST/AFS 294: Medicine and Empire
ANTH 3072CBL: Medicines and Meanings
GS 264: Global Public Health: Critical Approaches
PH 3001 Introduction to Epidemiology
PH 3013 Public Health Research Methods
PH 4001 Social Determinants of Health
STAT 113 Applied Statistics
Global and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Health
ANTH 3072CBL: Medicines and Meanings
ASIA 3056/PH 3008: Maternal and Child Health in S.E. Asia
ASIA 3058/PH 3010: COVID in Asia
BIOL 412/GS 412: Cross-Cultural Healing
FR 3047/AFS 3045/ ENG 3064 Zombies, Epidemics and Illnesses in the Francophone World
GS 264: Global Public Health: Critical Approaches
HIST/AFS 294: Medicine and Empire
HIST 4017/AFS 4015: Health and Healing in Africa
PH 3002: Health Behavior and Promotion
PH 4003: Population Approaches to Mental Health
REL 3039/ASIA 3054: Yoga Transformations
Critical Humanistic Perspectives on Health
ANTH 4020: Anthropology of the Body
EDUC/GNDR 325: Sexuality Education
HIST 3107/ANTH 3073: The Black Death
HIST 3097: Public Health in History
PCA 335/GNDR 335: Sex Talk
PCA 343/GNDR 343: Taboo Performances
PCA 370: Against Health: Rhetoric & the Health Humanities
PH 3009 Introduction to the Health Humanities
PHIL 354 Bioethics w/CBL
REL 3024: Women, Religion, and Food
Scientific Perspectives on Health
ANTH 270 Plagues and Peoples
ANTH 4024 Paleoepidemiology
BIOL 258: Ethnobotany
BIOL 370 Hormones, Disease and Development
GEOL 110 Environmental Geology
PSYC 256: Health Psychology
PSYC 413: Community Psychology
PSYC 465 Applied Behavior Analysis Seminar
PH 3001 Introduction to Epidemiology
PH 4001 Social Determinants of Health
SOC 275: Medical Sociology
SOC225: Women's Health and Aging
SOC 246CBL: Aging and Society w/ CBL
Course Descriptions
See departmental listings for non-Public Health course descriptions and any prerequisites.
PH 216: Intro to Public Health
The field of Public Health integrates knowledge of biology, human behavior, and social constructs with problem-solving strategies to address issues of disease facing distinct populations. This course will provide an introduction to principles of public health and epidemiology, social determinants of health, the biological basis of the most prevalent communicable and non-communicable diseases, as well as an exploration of global public health issues. Students will utilize this knowledge in a final project to identify and characterize a local public health issue, followed by developing an appropriate intervention or prevention plan.
PH 3009 Introduction to the Health Humanities
In an article in the Times Higher Education, entitled ‘A Humanist is Crucial when Fever is Raging’, Prof. Robert Peckham of the University of Hong Kong talks about the coronavirus epidemics and argued that ‘The humanities vanish from view at the very moment they are most required. So many facets of the coronavirus outbreak lie beyond the technical scope of biomedicine (…). An interdisciplinary approach focused on the big picture is urgently required to make sense of biomedicine’s worldliness and disease’s entanglement with social and political processes.’ Such an approach would reorient medical concerns ‘towards the vital socio-economic and cultural issues that impinge on health and well-being: inequality, poverty and discrimination.’ Prof. Peckham underlines the importance of Health Humanities in the treatment of an epidemic such as the coronavirus. In this class, students will reflect on Health Humanities as a critical humanistic perspective, and will decenter the dominant narrative through which we understand health and what it means to be ‘healthy’. Can also be taken as a Critical Humanistic Perspectives elective for the PH minor.
HIST/AFS 294: Medicine and Empire
Can also be taken as a Global and Cross-cultural Perspectives elective for the PH major/minor.
ANTH 3072CBL: Medicines and Meanings
Can also be taken as a Global and Cross-Cultural Perspectives elective for the PH major/minor.
GS 264: Global Public Health: Critical Approaches
Can also be taken as a Global and Cross-Cultural Perspectives elective for the PH major/minor.
PH 3001 Introduction to Epidemiology
As the basic science of public health, this course examines the causes and distribution of
population health and the foundations of epidemiologic study design and basic analysis. This course also explores the issues relating to the impact and burden of chronic and infectious disease, specifically how disease disproportionately affects marginalized and underrepresented populations. Can also be taken as a Scientific Perspectives elective for the PH minor.
PH 3013 Public Health Research Methods
Public health is about what makes us sick, what keeps us healthy and what we can do at a group level about it. Thus, public health is working to protect the environment, identifying, and controlling sources of illness, considering the impacts on the health of economic, ethnic and class differences, developing interventions to promote healthy lifestyles and behaviors, and producing health policies and legislation that benefit the public health. The goal of this course is to cover a diverse array of research designs and methods for contemporary public health practice including, but not limited to, experimental designs, public health surveillance designs, and case-control/cohort studies. Students will learn how both quantitative and qualitative research methods are used to better understand how demographic and structural variables contribute to population health outcomes.
PH 4001 Social Determinants of Health
Serving as the “anchor” of the public health major, this course examines, in-depth, how some of the critical social determinants of health, such as race, gender, poverty, and geography impact health outcomes. Can also be taken as a Critical Humanistic Perspectives elective for the PH minor.
STAT 113 Applied Statistics
Global and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Health
ASIA 3056/PH 3008: Maternal and Child Health in S.E. Asia
ASIA 3058/PH 3010: COVID in Asia
BIOL 412/GS 412: Cross-Cultural Healing
FR 3047/AFS 3045/ ENG 3064 Zombies, Epidemics and Illnesses in the Francophone World
HIST 4017/AFS 4015: Health and Healing in Africa
PH 3002: Health Behavior and Promotion
This course provides an overview of the field of health behavior and promotion, including an introduction to critical theories and methods. Using a 'socioecological view' of health, we will examine how biology (genetics), behavior, environment, culture, and social determinants affect individual behavior and population health. This course will introduce theoretical concepts of health behavior (e.g., health belief model, theory of planned behavior) and their role in public health problems and community-based approaches to health promotion.
PH 4003: Population Approaches to Mental Health
Over the last century public health efforts, such as immunization, safer food practices, public health education and promotion, improved sanitation, and water purification have been tremendously successful in eradicating and controlling a host of diseases. The result has been a dramatic improvement in population health and life expectancy. However, public health has paid far less attention to the impact of mental illness on individuals and society. Public Mental Health is the application of the principles of medicine and social science to prevent the occurrence of mental and behavioral disorders and to promote the mental health of the population. This course illustrates the principles of public health applied to depressive disorder, including principles of epidemiology, transcultural psychiatry, health services research, and prevention. It is predicted that by 2020 depressive disorder will be the most important cause of disease burden in the entire world! Every human being suffers from feeling depressed at some point or another, but only about one-fifth of the population will experience an episode of depressive disorder over the course of their lives. This course illuminates the public health approach to disease, and the complexities of applying this approach to mental disorders, using depression. In this course, we will explore the different challenges faced by those with mental health conditions compared to physical health problems. Using peer-reviewed literature, white papers, popular media, and discussions with experts in academia, you will develop the necessary competencies that will enable you to make a positive difference as future leaders promoting healthy populations. The core method of this course is group work to help you to develop skills in peer-reviewed literature development and review, as well as effective presentation methods, tailored to the students’ academic background or focus.
REL 3039/ASIA 3054: Yoga Transformations
Critical Humanistic Perspectives on Health
ANTH 4020: Anthropology of the Body
EDUC/GNDR 325: Sexuality Education
HIST 3107/ANTH 3073: The Black Death
HIST 3097: Public Health in History
PHIL 354 Bioethics w/CBL
PCA 335/GNDR 335: Sex Talk
PCA 343/GNDR 343: Taboo Performances
PCA 370: Against Health: Rhetoric & the Health Humanities
REL 3024: Women, Religion, and Food
Scientific Perspectives on Health
ANTH 270 Plagues and Peoples
ANTH 4024 Paleoepidemiology
BIOL 258: Ethnobotany
BIOL 370 Hormones, Disease and Development
GEOL 110 Environmental Geology
PSYC 256: Health Psychology
PSYC 413: Community Psychology
PSYC 465 Applied Behavior Analysis Seminar
SOC 275: Medical Sociology
SOC225: Women's Health and Aging
SOC 246CBL: Aging and Society w/ CBL