Health Education Course Listings

This course emphasizes the concepts, philosophy, and principles of public health and their relationship to physical, mental, and social well-being of the community. The focus is on the prevention of disease, the promotion and maintenance of health, and the provision of environmental and personal health services through organized community effort. 

This course focuses on the role health education plays in the development of healthful patterns of living. A philosophy of health education emphasizing holistic health will be generated. The organization and administration of school, community, health care facility, and workplace health education programs are introduced. 

This course is primarily designed to introduce undergraduate students studying Health Education to the concepts and principles underlying the educational strategies geared toward promoting health and preventing disease in a variety of settings. The course emphasizes practical utility of the concepts as they relate to the students' future health education/promotion efforts. The importance of a needs assessment and program evaluation will be especially focused upon in the course, as well as strategies integrating these valable tools into curriculum design. 

This course introduces students to the concept of social determinants of health, and strongly emphasizes the influence of social power relations on public health. An examination of a set of major health issues, at both the international and national levels provides the framework for students to learn and understand these concepts. A set of learning modules begins with identifying major contemporary health problems,definitions of health and health promotion as established through the World Health organization, and an exploration of social power relations and how they can shape public health. The course then moves to examine a set of specific health issues to see how they have been shaped by their social determinants. Juniors only. 

This course is designed to introduce basic epidemiological methods used in the study of current major health problems. Content includes explanation of the scope and focus of epidemiology, simple measures of disease frequency and association used in the study of the distribution and determinants of disease, types of epidemiological study designs, and practical applications. Emphasis on interpretation of epidemiological information and application of findings Prerequisite: Community Health and an elementary statistics course. Required for seniors in Community Health Education; open by permission to other upper division students in Health Professions. 

This course will survey the rapidly growing field of environmental health through an introduction to the links between environmental stressors and impacts on public health. The course will explore human and indusrial activities that impact on environmental health such as population, food production, air and water pollution, waste, the built environment, toxic substances, pests, and global climate change. The coure will also examine the types of diseases and illnesses that result from environmental impacts. Students will be encouraged to examine in greater detail a specific topic in environmental health of personal interest. 

This course describes and analyzes the nature and functions of health care services and health professionals. The course examines the impact of social, political, economic, ethical, professional, legal, and technological forces on them and the system they comprise. Juniors and Seniors only. 

Provides a broad overview of how the design, manufacture, use and disposal of chemicals and chemical products affect health and ecosystems. Provides an in-depth overview of how chemicals are monitored in the environment (including biomonitoring), how their risks are characterized, and the prevention of chemical risks through safer chemical design. 

This course focuses upon the communication techniques and mass media approaches necessary to promote and implement effective health promotion programs and activities. Awareness and sensitivity toward cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity will be particularly emphasized when discussing various communication techniques in relation to particular health issues. 

Full-time health education field experience (28 hours per week). Students continue at the prepracticum site, participating in the development, implementation and evaluation of health education programs and take an active part in the total community health education process. Seniors only. 

Climate change offers one of the greatest challenges yet faced by society and scientists. The scientific consensus is clear that climate change is occurring, its pace is accelerating, its impacts on human society will be largely negative, and it is largely caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, despite strong scientific evidence for the enormous challenges that society may face, scientists' attempts to disseminate that evidence beyond their peers have not yet been successful. Indeed in today's media world of blogs, YouTube video clips, and sound-bites, confusion over the scientific reality of climate change frequently dominates the discourse in classrooms and communities. This course will provide students with the tools and knowledge that they need to develop their own well-informed view of climate change. Because climate change is both impacted by humans and will increasingly impact society, this course takes a cross-disciplinary approach, integrating science, policy solutions, and media literacy as they relate to climate change.