SPHG 713: Understanding Public Health
Credit Hours: 2
Course Overview
This course is completed as part of the 14-credit integrated Core public health training program completed by all MPH students in UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Public health practitioners work to improve population-wide health outcomes and reduce health disparities. To succeed at this, they must first be able to understand health issues in depth, within a specific context. This course is designed to provide you with the skills to do this, and the opportunity to apply those skills to contemporary health issues.
Specifically, we will explore:
- What constitutes a public health issue and why.
- Why antiracism and social justice perspectives are critical components of public health.
- What factors determine population health patterns and inequities.
- What strategies facilitate collaborative and culturally appropriate communication with diverse audiences about public health issues.
Students will work in teams on an assigned health topic, integrating what they learn in this course with the methodological and analytical skills developed in other Core courses. Throughout the course, we will also focus on developing a shared public health vocabulary that spans our individual disciplines and examining how implicit and structural bias can undermine public health practice.