Global Health

Note: All courses used to fulfill the minor requirements must be taken for a letter grade.

NS 2600 – Introduction to Global Health
Students explore contemporary issues, problems, and controversies in global health through an interdisciplinary perspective. The course begins with an introduction to the global burden of disease and then examines the complex social, economic, political, environmental, and biological factors that structure the origins, consequences, and possible treatments of disease. Instruction is done through lectures, case studies, films and readings. Evaluation is based on class participation, individual assignments, a group project, and exams.  This course will be offered Spring 2010.

Students will choose ONE of the courses listed below based on their interests:

• NS 3060 – Nutritional Problems of Developing Nations
  Students gain an overview of the most important nutrition problems facing developing countries today and an in-depth understanding of the nutrition problems of one country, chosen as a case study for the course. The course uses the health/care/nutrition framework to analyze the causes of these nutrition problems. Instruction is done through lectures and readings. Evaluation is based on individual assignments, a group project, and exams. This course will be offered Fall 2009.

• NS4450/AEM4450- Food Policy for Developing Countries
  This course offers comprehensive presentation and discussion of policy options for a sustainable global food system, with a focus on developing countries. Topics include economic policy related to nutrition, health, consumption, production, natural resource management, trade, markets, gender roles, armed conflict, and ethics. A social entrepreneurship approach based on case studies and active participation by students will be used. This course will be offered Fall 2009.

• ENTOM 2100/B&SOC 2101 – Plagues and People
  Human diseases transmitted by insects and related forms (arthropods) have impacted human lives and society throughout history. This course focuses on the pathogens, parasites, and arthropods that cause human plagues. Special attention is paid to those plagues that have had the greatest impact on human culture and expression. Emerging diseases, bio-terrorism, and future plagues are addressed. Lectures are supplemented with readings and videos. This course will be offered Fall 2009.

• ANTHR 2468 – Medicine, Culture and Society
  Medicine has become the language and practice through which we address a broad range of both individual and societal complaints. Interest in this “medicalization of life” may be one of the reasons that medical anthropology is currently the fastest growing sub-field in anthropology. This course encourages students to examine concepts of disease, suffering, health, and wellbeing in their immediate experience and beyond. In the process, students will gain a working knowledge of ecological, critical, phenomenological, and applied approaches used by medical anthropologists. We will investigate what is involved in becoming a doctor, the sociality of medicines, controversies over new medical technologies, and the politics of medical knowledge. Our readings will address medicine in North America as well as other parts of the world. The universality of biomedicine (or hospital medicine) will not be taken for granted, but rather we will examine the plurality generated by the various political, economic, social, and ethical demands under which biomedicine has developed in different places and at different times. In addition, biomedical healing and expertise will be viewed in relation to other kinds of healing and expertise.  This course will be offered Fall 2009.

• ANTHR 4862 - Healing and Medicine in Africa
  This class will examine historical and contemporary forms of therapy in Africa, and contests over the conceptual and material resources that have shaped health and healing on the continent. Our readings and discussions will explore the ways in which healing and medicine are simultaneously individual and political, biological and cultural. Medicine and healing pose questions about the intimate ways that power works on bodies, the processes through which history and politics shape the possibilities of life and the context of death, and the forms of threat, violence, possibility and liberation that have constituted the shifting social, economic, and ethical regimes of the past century. Examining these questions in relation to Africa draws them into debates on postcoloniality and discussions about the place of  “Africa” in today’s world. We will look at Africa not only as a site of epidemics, poverty and violent wars, but also as a site of innovation and creative survival, which is central to the biopolitics of the contemporary global order. Through accounts of the expansion of biomedicine, the continuities and changes embodied in traditional medicine, and the relationship between medicine, science and law, this course explores the frictions that inhere in broad historical shifts propelled by colonialism, nationalism, civil war, environmental change and globalization. Our readings will also frame current debates around colonial and postcolonial forms of governance through medicine, the contradictions of humanitarianism and the health “crisis” in Africa, and the rise of new forms of “therapeutic citizenship.”  This course will being offered in Spring 2010.
  

• AEM 2000 – Contemporary Controversies in the Global Economy
  This course aims to stimulate critical thinking and cogent writing and speaking about contemporary controversies that attract regular attention in the international press and among key private and public sector decisionmakers. Students read and discuss competing arguments about current issues such as patenting and pricing of pharmaceuticals worldwide, controls on commercial and humanitarian distribution of genetically modified foods, and immigration restrictions. Students write a series of short briefing papers and give regular oral briefs, which are evaluated for quality of communication and content.  This course is not being offered this year.

• B&SOC 2051/S&TS 2051 – Ethical Issues in Health and Medicine
  In today’s rapidly changing world of health and medicine, complex ethical issues arise in many contexts—from the private, interpersonal interactions between doctor and patient to the broad, mass-mediated controversies that make medicine into headline news. This course examines ethical problems and policy issues that arise in contemporary medicine, health care, and biomedical research. Tools for ethical analysis are applied to a variety of cases and fundamental questions in bioethics. Perspectives from social science, history, and law also inform the course. The course explores ethical questions that arise in a number of substantive contexts, including the doctor-patient relationship, medical decision making near the end of life, human experimentation, genetics and reproductive technology, public health, and the allocation of scarce resources.  This course will be offered in Fall 2009.

• HE 4060- Fieldwork in Diversity and Professional Practice
  This course is part of the Urban Semester Program in New York City. Students learn through a cycle of experience and reflection. Over the course of eight weeks, students learn how to implement experience-based learning techniques and perspectives to enhance their competencies as initiates of professional practice. Students spend four days each week in an internship of their own choosing. One day each week, students have discussions with professionals who represent different aspects of the New York City economy. This exposure enables students to explore a variety of professional perspectives and practices. Students participate in reflections seminars with the director of the program to explore student internship experiences and learning.

• HE 4900- Multicultural Practice
  This course is available to participants in the Urban Semester Program in New York City. Students explore the intersection of organizational culture with issues of diversity. They investigate the nature of organizational culture and how it engages and includes or does not include diversity. Students report back in seminars their understanding and analysis of their internship organizations and their industry’s role in creating conditions and environments of inclusion or exclusion. The course explores the conditions and processes that have brought about inclusion or exclusion.

• HE 4950- Culture, Medicine and Professional Practice in a Diverse World
  This course is available to participants in the Urban Semester Program in New York City. Students participate in several experiential learning environments related to medicine over the course of the semester. Students rotate in a four-week unit, supported by Pastoral Care and ER. Medical and health-related practitioners make presentations throughout the semester.

NS 4600 - Explorations in Global Health
This capstone course for global health minors assists students in exploring their topical interests in global health and integrating these interests with their field experiences, core knowledge in global health, ethical frameworks, and personal values. Course content is driven largely by student topical interests and experiences, as well as by selected guest speakers. Explorations are done through individual work, team projects, and classroom discussions. This course will be offered Spring 2010.