Health Advocacy Courses

This course introduces health advocacy. In this course, we will explore the multiple roles that health advocates assume as they create productive change on behalf of patients/consumers, families, and communities. Advocacy is practiced by improving how health care is delivered within existing systems, restructuring or reinventing healthcare system areas, and eliminating barriers to health caused by environmental destruction, poverty, and illiteracy. Throughout the course, students will consider practices in diverse arenas within this interdisciplinary field, including clinical settings, community-based organizations, advocacy organizations, the media, interest groups, governmental organizations, and policy settings. They will learn to analyze organizations and communities to understand hierarchies and decision-making within them and be exposed to frameworks for conceptualizing and promoting the right to health. The course will also explore strategies to give health advocates and consumers more power in making decisions, defining issues, designing programs, and developing policies. The experiences of individuals and communities and how systems respond to those experiences will remain a central focus as students explore concepts, models, and practices of health advocacy.

It is not enough for Health Advocates to understand the physiological causes of disease.  To effectively advocate for change, the role of social determinants of health on individual and community disease risk and health outcomes and how health policies can contribute to or ameliorate illness must be known. 

This course provides first-time physiology students with an introductory survey of the major areas of human physiology.  Students will learn about the human body's organ systems by examining normal physiology and representative disease states to highlight what can go wrong.  Students will explore the range of causes of acute and chronic diseases and infirmity, as well as the barriers to an individual's ability to regain health.  Students will understand the direct causes of diseases and illness, including how genetics affect health and how bacterial and viral infectious diseases are transmitted through different vectors.  A focus will be placed on the role of social determinants in individual and community health outcomes, with specific emphasis on the environment and the effects of income, race, gender, religion, and other factors.  We will also examine the role of public policy in shaping health outcomes for communities using the ecological and health in all policies (HiAP) models.

The experience of illness and disability is both intimately personal and reflective of larger social, political, and cultural realities. To effectively work in direct patient care or broader scholarly or organizational arenas, a health advocate must be able to interpret and understand personal, communal, and institutional narratives. This course will introduce students to written, oral and visual narratives of illness and disability, narrative and cultural theory, methods for critical analysis of illness narratives, and media studies. Students will write their own illness or disability narratives during the course session, exploring issues such as selfhood, perspective and memory, representation, identity, family dynamics in health care and decision-making, and caregiving. Through in-depth analysis of the assigned texts, online discussions, student-led facilitation, in-person group work, and student presentations. Finally, students will elicit, transcribe, and interpret the oral narrative of an individual with a chronic illness or disability.

This course will focus on how health advocates can affect policy change by developing an advocacy campaign. Students will define a health policy or system problem, formulate a proposed solution, identify needed data and narratives to demonstrate the need for your proposed solution, and map the other stakeholders (allies and opponents) who must be engaged. Students will learn how to select the appropriate advocacy strategies to bring about the desired changes in health policy and systems and the range of tools and skills they can employ to pursue their chosen advocacy strategy.  Students will understand the range of factors to be considered in selecting the decision-makers who should be the target(s) of the campaign, such as local, state, or federal health officials or executives of hospitals.

Statistics is essential in identifying problems, advancing campaigns, and evaluating programs. Students will gain comfort with foundational statistical concepts and methods in this course, focusing on healthcare data. By evaluating research papers and statistical statements, students will understand, recognize, and manage statistics and probability statements more effectively. With this gained understanding, students will be able to craft messages using quality statistics. The course does not concentrate on teaching a statistical package, but students will participate in basic computations.

This course introduces students to the research process that supports effective health advocacy in the community. Students will learn the principles of literature review, instrument construction and implementation, and issues specific to community-based work and needs assessment; they will be exposed to the process of ethical approval for research involving human subjects in the community. Students will have an opportunity to apply these research principles in the community setting, gaining an in-depth understanding of context-driven, community-based participatory research and the concept of co-production of knowledge. They will develop assessment and evaluation skills and understand the uses for qualitative and quantitative methodology while gaining practical experience and applying statistical principles. By introducing students to data-collection concepts and analysis, this course establishes foundations that will be further refined in subsequent coursework in the program.

Using a social justice framework, this course will provide a theoretical foundation for the exploration and application of ethical dilemmas relevant to the healthcare system in the United States.  In its various forms, the ethics of advocacy will be explored from different positions, from the patient and family level to healthcare institutions, funding mechanisms, and public policy perspectives.  In addition, as the medical model of disease has shifted to include the social-ecological model, recognizing the importance of the social on all aspects of health, wellness, and illness, ethical dilemmas have also changed. We will examine how social class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, among other social categories and identities, affect ethics. The shift away from purely medical bioethics to a more socially informed version of healthcare requires different approaches to solving new problems encountered within the current healthcare system. 

This course is not intended to teach you a moral code.  It will not teach you to act ethically, although it will likely make you think more about how you act and why.  You will be challenged to identify ethical problems and explore various outcomes and solutions, making real-world decisions within a climate of moral ambiguity and competing priorities.  

Health advocacy issues are addressed in many different ways, typically involving some type of direct intervention. This course will provide an overview of, and a critical reflection on, the program design and evaluation process. Students will discuss and study elements of design and evaluation, the major theoretical and political orientations to evaluation research, and the practical, ethical, and methodological problems involved in applying research methods to understanding social change. Thus, this course will also review the methodologies of community-based and participatory action research and practice. We will discuss how to approach program conception and implementation, including developing and measuring program goals and objectives, from a social-justice perspective. At the end of this course, students will be able to conceptually and practically understand the contours of how to thoughtfully plan, develop, and evaluate an intervention aimed at a health advocacy issue.

Students gain practical experience and expertise in their chosen advocacy career paths by selecting and partnering with an organization to complete 300 hours of fieldwork and the Capstone Project. Through this approximately year-long project, students engage with the self-selected organization and gain practical work and leadership experience while demonstrating the ability to:

• work in partnership with an organization
• conduct community-based participatory research in order to assess a problem and identify potential solutions
• collaboratively develop a program proposal, including an evaluation plan
• lead the program implementation

The Capstone Seminars provide a strategic perspective on how the healthcare field is evolving and the skills required to successfully navigate the rapidly changing profession in a system undergoing significant reform. The seminar is designed to facilitate students' work on the Capstone projects, affording a group setting to explore ideas and refine project parameters, connect the project to broader advocacy concepts and career development opportunities, and receive regular feedback on Capstone progress. Students integrate academic learning with field experience and examine how theoretical advocacy themes are operational in workplace settings. Capstone is designed to enhance the coherence of students’ educational experiences and further develop their sense of professional identity.

This course introduces health advocacy. In this course, we will explore the multiple roles that health advocates assume as they create productive change on behalf of patients/consumers, families, and communities. Advocacy is practiced by improving how health care is delivered within existing systems, restructuring or reinventing healthcare system areas, and eliminating barriers to health caused by environmental destruction, poverty, and illiteracy. Throughout the course, students will consider practices in diverse arenas within this interdisciplinary field, including clinical settings, community-based organizations, advocacy organizations, the media, interest groups, governmental organizations, and policy settings. They will learn to analyze organizations and communities to understand hierarchies and decision-making within them and be exposed to frameworks for conceptualizing and promoting the right to health. The course will also explore strategies to give health advocates and consumers more power in making decisions, defining issues, designing programs, and developing policies. The experiences of individuals and communities and how systems respond to those experiences will remain a central focus as students explore concepts, models, and practices of health advocacy.

It is not enough for Health Advocates to understand the physiological causes of disease.  To effectively advocate for change, the role of social determinants of health on individual and community disease risk and health outcomes and how health policies can contribute to or ameliorate illness must be known. 

This course provides first-time physiology students with an introductory survey of the major areas of human physiology.  Students will learn about the human body's organ systems by examining normal physiology and representative disease states to highlight what can go wrong.  Students will explore the range of causes of acute and chronic diseases and infirmity, as well as the barriers to an individual's ability to regain health.  Students will understand the direct causes of diseases and illness, including how genetics affect health and how bacterial and viral infectious diseases are transmitted through different vectors.  A focus will be placed on the role of social determinants in individual and community health outcomes, with specific emphasis on the environment and the effects of income, race, gender, religion, and other factors.  We will also examine the role of public policy in shaping health outcomes for communities using the ecological and health in all policies (HiAP) models.

The experience of illness and disability is both intimately personal and reflective of larger social, political, and cultural realities. To effectively work in direct patient care or broader scholarly or organizational arenas, a health advocate must be able to interpret and understand personal, communal, and institutional narratives. This course will introduce students to written, oral and visual narratives of illness and disability, narrative and cultural theory, methods for critical analysis of illness narratives, and media studies. Students will write their own illness or disability narratives during the course session, exploring issues such as selfhood, perspective and memory, representation, identity, family dynamics in health care and decision-making, and caregiving. Through in-depth analysis of the assigned texts, online discussions, student-led facilitation, in-person group work, and student presentations. Finally, students will elicit, transcribe, and interpret the oral narrative of an individual with a chronic illness or disability.

This course will focus on how health advocates can affect policy change by developing an advocacy campaign. Students will define a health policy or system problem, formulate a proposed solution, identify needed data and narratives to demonstrate the need for your proposed solution, and map the other stakeholders (allies and opponents) who must be engaged. Students will learn how to select the appropriate advocacy strategies to bring about the desired changes in health policy and systems and the range of tools and skills they can employ to pursue their chosen advocacy strategy.  Students will understand the range of factors to be considered in selecting the decision-makers who should be the target(s) of the campaign, such as local, state, or federal health officials or executives of hospitals.

Statistics is essential in identifying problems, advancing campaigns, and evaluating programs. Students will gain comfort with foundational statistical concepts and methods in this course, focusing on healthcare data. By evaluating research papers and statistical statements, students will understand, recognize, and manage statistics and probability statements more effectively. With this gained understanding, students will be able to craft messages using quality statistics. The course does not concentrate on teaching a statistical package, but students will participate in basic computations.

This course introduces students to the research process that supports effective health advocacy in the community. Students will learn the principles of literature review, instrument construction and implementation, and issues specific to community-based work and needs assessment; they will be exposed to the process of ethical approval for research involving human subjects in the community. Students will have an opportunity to apply these research principles in the community setting, gaining an in-depth understanding of context-driven, community-based participatory research and the concept of co-production of knowledge. They will develop assessment and evaluation skills and understand the uses for qualitative and quantitative methodology while gaining practical experience and applying statistical principles. By introducing students to data-collection concepts and analysis, this course establishes foundations that will be further refined in subsequent coursework in the program.

Using a social justice framework, this course will provide a theoretical foundation for the exploration and application of ethical dilemmas relevant to the healthcare system in the United States.  In its various forms, the ethics of advocacy will be explored from different positions, from the patient and family level to healthcare institutions, funding mechanisms, and public policy perspectives.  In addition, as the medical model of disease has shifted to include the social-ecological model, recognizing the importance of the social on all aspects of health, wellness, and illness, ethical dilemmas have also changed. We will examine how social class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, among other social categories and identities, affect ethics. The shift away from purely medical bioethics to a more socially informed version of healthcare requires different approaches to solving new problems encountered within the current healthcare system. 

This course is not intended to teach you a moral code.  It will not teach you to act ethically, although it will likely make you think more about how you act and why.  You will be challenged to identify ethical problems and explore various outcomes and solutions, making real-world decisions within a climate of moral ambiguity and competing priorities.  

Health advocacy issues are addressed in many different ways, typically involving some type of direct intervention. This course will provide an overview of, and a critical reflection on, the program design and evaluation process. Students will discuss and study elements of design and evaluation, the major theoretical and political orientations to evaluation research, and the practical, ethical, and methodological problems involved in applying research methods to understanding social change. Thus, this course will also review the methodologies of community-based and participatory action research and practice. We will discuss how to approach program conception and implementation, including developing and measuring program goals and objectives, from a social-justice perspective. At the end of this course, students will be able to conceptually and practically understand the contours of how to thoughtfully plan, develop, and evaluate an intervention aimed at a health advocacy issue.

From colonial times, access to health care has been less a history of access and inclusion and more one of exclusion and organizing to guarantee its access to the increasingly diverse population of a growing country. This course explores the varied understandings of health and medical care from colonial times to the late 20th century. Topics include the role that ethnicity, race, gender, and religious identity played in access to and provision of health services; the migration of health care from home and community (midwifery, homeopathy) to institutions (nursing, hospitals), and the social conditions that fueled that migration; the struggle for ascendancy among the different fields of medical education; and the creation of the field of public health, its role in defining and controlling outbreaks of disease, and its impact on addressing inequities in access to healthcare services. Students will prepare a major research paper investigating an aspect of the history of healthcare of special interest.

This course will introduce students to a broad range of legal and policy considerations generated by our healthcare system. The course will focus on three areas: the rights of patients as they access care; the legal and regulatory structure that governs the system; and tensions between individual rights and the interests of society. This course is designed to provide students with sufficient knowledge to identify and evaluate legal issues as they encounter them and engage what they have learned to promote an interdisciplinary practice.

This course will examine many of the major issues facing the American healthcare system from a variety of economic perspectives. A wide range of topics will be covered, from the racial and economic disparities in health outcomes to the Patient Protection Act and alternative modes of financing of the medical care delivery system. Students will learn how the tools and analytic approaches used by economists can enhance the understanding of major public health issues such as AIDS, reproductive care, and mental health, as well as crucial health care financing issues such as the rising cost of healthcare. 

This course will examine the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of healthcare policy. It will focus on the interaction of the healthcare system with the federal, state, and local political systems. Individual pieces of health policy will be used to study the evolution of health policy and the impact of health policy on health care in the United States.