Course Offereings
LPHS 1000 Foundations in Public Health
Offered beginning FL2024
This course examines the foundations of public health using an equity and social justice approach emphasizing the interconnectedness of population and individual health. The course will cover the history and impact of public health, including the importance of health equity, social justice, and human rights, as well as the essential role of ethics in public health. The course will expose students to various public health professionals working on inter-professional teams to explore careers in public health, we will invite public health and community health experts from the St. Louis region as well as national and international guest speakers.
LPHS 2000 Introduction to Public and Global Health
Offered beginning SP2025
This course is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to the multifaceted dimensions of public health both within the United States and internationally. Throughout this course, students will embark on a journey to understand how health has been defined within the global context, exploring the historical evolution of public and global health disciplines as well as contemporary issues within the field. Delving into the ethical landscape of global health research, programming, and policy, students will articulate human rights issues and examine approaches ensuring ethical interventions. The course will shed light on the intricate interplay of social determinants of health, unraveling their impact on well-being and the emergence of health inequities. By examining both successes and failures in global health interventions, students will gain a nuanced understanding of the challenges inherent in the field. Furthermore, the course will foster a comparative analysis of the organization, structure, and function of diverse healthcare systems across international settings. Finally, with a focus on morbidity and mortality, students will explore major causes, trends, and measures of infectious and chronic disease, as well as some underappreciated and emerging issues, providing a holistic perspective on the critical issues shaping the landscape of public and global health today. We will engage with class topics through a range of mediums, including book chapters, scientific papers, media pieces, podcasts, guest lectures from leaders in the field, and TED talks.
LPHS 3000 Public Health Theories, Models, and Frameworks
Offered beginning SP2025
This course will provide an overview of social and behavioral science and humanistic theories and frameworks that are currently used to: 1) understand health related behaviors; and 2) guide development of interventions and policies designed to promote positive health behavior including those that prevent, reduce or eliminate major public health problems. We will also explore the history of these theories and frameworks and the cultural and artistic approaches to change health and health related behaviors. We will use an ecological framework to examine theories at multiple levels of the culture and social ecology from individual to policy level, focusing on applications that will impact health at the population level.
LPHS 3010 Topics in PH&S: Climate for All: A Solutions-based Investigation of the Climate Crises and PH Impact
Offered beginning SP2025
This course will cover the myriad ways the climate crisis is affecting the global practice of public health and the solutions that are used to address those impacts. The objective of Climate for All is to empower students with the knowledge and confidence to create impactful solutions that will solve climate crisis related problems in the practice of public health. Climate for All is a unique course centered on devising answers to the climate crisis related public health questions. The course has five core foci: communications and media, air, heat, cities, and planetary/one health. The public health concerns related to the climate crisis in each of these domains are often intersectional; picking up the mantle for one frequently involves engaging with another. For instance, the pressing concept of the wet bulb temperature lies across all the domains of the course. Climate for All engages the next generation of climate leaders to think creatively and collaboratively about the solutions that will be necessary to solve some of public health's greatest challenges.
LPHS 4010 Topics in PH&S: Water and Health in the Colonial and Postcolonial World
Offered beginning SP2025
Water supplies are becoming scarcer globally due to climate change. We use clean water-fresh and salt-in a variety of ways that provide comfort, stability, and health, making it one of the most valuable commodities on Earth. While countries in the Global North are beginning to see more frequent and lengthier droughts, those in the Latin America, Africa, and South Asia have long struggled over how to distribute and use their clean water supplies. Focusing on building writing and analytical skills, this course will examine how colonialism and its far-reaching effects have created an environment of scarce water supplies in many areas of the world, affecting the health and well-being of millions of inhabitants. Water access is difficult to achieve, but for much of the Global South, the colonial period helped craft the problems we see today. This class will ask what colonial and postcolonial technologies' construction and use teach us about equitable clean water distribution, how social and cultural identities influence water supplies and use, and why water has been such an important element-and commodity-in our world, especially where Europeans settled and marginalized local populations.