Courses - UM-GHRT completed its program in July 2009. See the UM Center for Global Health

A list of recommended courses for students interested in global health. View PDF

Each term, faculty and other campus visitors may offer special topics or mini-courses relevant to global health. Such courses will be posted here as they are announced.

Winter 2009:
The following courses are offered by Dr. Priscilla Reddy, visiting professor from Cape Town, South Africa.

HBEHED 710.002 (3 Credits), Mondays 9am-Noon, 1750 SPH 1
Youth Living in Transition: Youth Risk Behaviour, Sexual Behaviour, Violence Related Behaviour, Substance Misuse ? A Post-Apartheid South African Case Study (Designed for Doctoral and 2nd Year MPH students) Topics to be explored include the status of youth around the world from the perspective of health, education, socio-economic status; the Youth Risk Behaviour Survey (YRBS) in the US and South Africa - with emphasis on the history of the youth in South Africa; the South African Integrated Youth Plan will be explored and will allow students to critically unpack the meaning of integrated interventions and understanding of government and health policies - including how the South African government functions. Students would be required to develop an intervention for a specific target group using all the information given above.

HBEHED 710.003 (3 Credits), Tuesdays & Thursdays 9am-10:30am
HIV and AIDS: Developing and Testing Interventions: Challenges Explored in Developing Countries
This course will cover the basic components of the epidemiology, morbidity and mortality of the HIV epidemic, including STI’s. Culture, gender and stigma issues regarding the spread of HIV globally will be explored - more specifically introducing the concept of culture to lead into issues of cultural relativism and tying in gender and stigma issues (both male and female), which are essentially culturally based; the cultural perception of HIV globally, focusing on African and Latin American examples. When developing interventions it has to target and be specific to the given community. One has to be present and interact with that community and the intervention should be informed by the community. The demographics, politics, economics, geographic specificities of HIV and AIDS will be explored in detail and will allow students to view the epidemic from various perspectives both globally and within the African context. The development and testing of interventions using theoretical and culturally specific information will be covered and students will explore the basic requirements for developing and testing behaviour change interventions with South African examples (i.e., the Health Promotion matrix, planned interventions, theories and focus groups). Critical analysis of the South African experience from prevention to treatment (a prison intervention, HIV positive and HIV negative intervention, men’s health and behaviour) will be explored. Students would be required to develop an intervention for a specific target group using all the information given above.

HBEHED 710.004 (3 Credits), Wednesdays 11am-2pm
International Tobacco Control: From Epidemiology to Health Education and Legislative Action ? South Africa as a Case Study
This course will cover the basic epidemiology, economics and health care costs of tobacco usage globally. This class will cover epidemiology by continent and country. Global treaties, specifically the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and its application and interpretation will be covered in depth.   Conducting tobacco control research in developing countries within resource constrained settings will be explored and we will examine tobacco industry strategies, surveillance planning and intervention mapping. The development and testing of interventions using theory and culture will be addressed.The history of tobacco control in South Africa will be discussed from the viewpoint of legislation to education and policy. Students will develop an intervention for a specific target group.

FALL 2008:

• Public Policy 533 (Ford School): Public Health in Developing Countries
  Tuesdays/Thursdays 10:00 am – 11:30 am, Weill Hall 1220
  Instructor: Sharon Maccini
  This course will focus on public health in the developing world from the perspective of the social sciences, drawing on economics, demography, political science and sociology.  First, we will look at epidemiological and demographic evidence on trends in mortality across time worldwide and consider the factors driving the unprecedented mortality declines of the last century.  We will then discuss the interaction between health and wealth at both the individual and national levels.  The rest of the course will be roughly divided between domestic public health policies within developing countries and global health issues with major impact in the developing world.  On the former, we will discuss health care systems in developing country and options for improvement.  We will also compare HIV policy in several specific countries.  In terms of global issues, we will look in depth at regulation of pharmaceuticals and access to medicine in developing countries; health worker migration from poor to rich countries (“brain drain”); global food shortages; and population policy and gender bias in survival.
  
  
• HBHE 611 / WS 698.003 / LACS 655.
  Gender, Sexuality, Health and Human Rights: Latin American and Caribbean Perspectives.
  Instructor: Professor Mark Padilla
  Wed 1-4 pm, M4318 SPH2.
  This course addresses the intersection of gender, sexuality, health and human rights in a global context.  It is an interdisciplinary course that responds to contemporary debates in the social and health sciences regarding how to understand and ameliorate health concerns that occur at the intersection of multiple social, cultural, and political processes—in this case, gender, sexuality, and human rights.  The course uses case studies and readings from Latin America and the Caribbean to examine how three major global health concerns – HIV/AIDS; reproductive health; and gender- and sexuality-based violence – are linked to: (1) cultural and religio-moral definitions of gender and sexuality; (2) contemporary reproductive and sexual rights movements and socio-political debates; (3) large-scale social, structural, and demographic upheavals, such as civil strife, urbanization, crime, and neoliberal reforms; and (4) the connections among global health multilateral and bilateral organizations, national health agendas, legal systems and the biases of public health programs and services.  It incorporates in-depth case studies from Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Mexico.
  
  
• LACS 490.001/HBEHED 710.003 LACS Public Health mini-course, Oct. 6-31, 2008. Contemporary Politics of Sexuality and Public Health in Latin America
  Visiting professor Mario Pecheny
  Date, time, room TBA. This course examines processes of politicization of sexuality and public health in Latin America, and their limits and tensions. We will discuss four main fields of political and social struggles: 1) “Women rights”: Feminist movements, gender perspectives, reproductive rights and reproductive health issues; 2) “HIV/AIDS”: HIV/AIDS movements, rights and policies; 3) “Non-heteronormative sexuality and gender”: GLBT movements, queer perspectives, sexual rights and issues; 4) “Drug use”: Drug users’ rights, drug policies and drug issues. In each field, some case studies will allow us to discuss both the specific features and the more general trends of those political processes: for example, emergency contraception and (illegal) abortion for the reproductive field. The analysis of those processes of politicization will allow us to critically revisit a Latin American tradition of framing social issues as collective, structural, political and historical, in opposition to a more hegemonic framing of issues as individual, contingent, non-political (i.e., private, natural) and “out-of-time”. The approach is twofold: on one hand, we select a political issue (e.g. abortion) and discuss the conflicts of rights that it entails (e.g. women rights vs. rights of the unborn). On the other hand, we analyze the political forms of contention around such rights, especially the formation of specific social movements.

WINTER 2008:

SW735, Health and Development: An International Perspective on Social Progress. Meets Wed. 2-5pm. Instructor: José A. Tapia, BMBCh, MPH, PhD (Econ). This course provides a survey of issues related to socioeconomic development and health progress from a multidisciplinary and international perspective.

CICS Graduate Seminar on Global Transformations (admission by application only, spring deadline)
The Center for International and Comparative Studies (CICS) offers a not-for-credit seminar for master's students and doctoral students at the pre-candidacy level intending to pursue field-based research outside the United States. This seminar is open to students in the early stages of graduate training with interests in international and area studies who can demonstrate goals of completing training and research through the doctorate.
more

FALL 2007

• NRE/UP 576: Ecological Design Approaches to Brownfield Redevelopment. The Graham Institute is pleased to announce an applied, interdisciplinary course offered by SNRE Professor, Joan Nassauer. More details
  
• EPID 663: Health, Evidence and Human Rights. Instructor Sioban Harlow, Professor of Epidemiology, teaches this course on how population research can contribute to developing evidence relevant to advancing human rights. Prerequisite: Graduate Standing. View PDF
  
• Seminar on Malaria Epidemiology. This 3-credit seminar will meet from 3pm-6pm each Thursday. The goal is to work together in defining, synthesizing and analyzing problems and processes in malaria epidemiology in particular, and more generally vector-borne diseases (VBDs), in developing countries. Pre-requisites:  Students should have successfully completed Epid 602, Epid 605 or equivalent, EHS 513 or equivalent, and obtained permission of instructor, Professor Mark Wilson.

OTHER COURSES TO NOTE:

• Winter 2007 CEE 592 Biological Processes in Environmental Engineering. The purpose of this course is to study the fundamental concepts of microbiological processes used for environmental protection and improvement. View PDF
• SOC 495.003 “Health and Population in South Africa”
  Discusses the historical roots of the health and population situation in South Africa, with comparisons to China and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union.
• Women's Studies 483: "Special Topics - International Reproductive Health Policy"
  Focuses on global reproductive and maternity health policy and how it shapes the local provision of women's health care services in developing countries, with an emphasis on Latin America. For those students who are interested and who have Spanish language speaking skills, there is a service learning study abroad component to this course where two weeks (June 17-June30) are spent in a rural Honduras community focused providing reproductive and maternity health care education and services.
• NURS 854/Women's Studies 698 Section 003, Special Seminar "Globalization, Culture and Women's Health". This graduate seminar will examine global perspectives on women's health, with an emphasis on the interaction of personal with structural (e.g., social, political, economic, cultural) factors. Personal factors include both biological and psychosocial conditions; systemic factors include social, economic and political structures. Particular attention will be devoted to understudied issues and the effects of gender based assumptions and traditions for women at high risk for poor health. Analysis of women’s health issues within a global context will draw on feminist, social justice and human rights traditions. During the academic term, we will discuss the role of women as recipients, active participants in, and providers of care with a goal of critiquing and developing theories about the state of women's health worldwide. Prerequisite: One Graduate course in Women's Studies and Graduate standing. Taught by Professor K Low.