Why you should learn this course?

The course is designed to help students develop basic literacy regarding social concepts and processes that influence health status and public health interventions. The course also hopes to help students develop insight into populations with whom they have worked in the past or will work in the future, and to develop one kind of effective writing tool (the narrative) for communicating about psychosocial issues in public health. These overall aims are approached through lectures, discussion, readings, work shopping, individual compositions, and group discussion of student writings.

Course Objectives:

1. To familiarize students with views on key concepts that forms a basis for literacy in the social and behavioral aspects of public health: culture, race/ethnicity, gender, poverty/disparities, factors related to behavior change, community, organizational climate, and family.
2. To familiarize students with the concept of a narrative as a therapeutic, policy, and investigative tool.
   
3. To help develop empathy for and a collaborative stance toward populations with whom one will work in the field of public health.
   
4. To promote interest in further study of the social and behavioral determinants of health.