Program: Public Health Concentration - Clark University

Overview

Undergraduate Concentration

Public health is inherently multidisciplinary, engaging aspects of statistics, medicine, microbiology, ecology, ethics, sociology, economics, law, politics, and others. Public health plays essential roles in preventing disease and promoting health in all cultures, and its importance is increasing as globalization expands. Earlier advances in public health practices have saved untold millions of lives and improved many millions more. Public health concerns apply to local and international communities. Major disparities among different socio-economic classes within any one society and between developed and non-developed countries present a major challenge to providing adequate public health in all societies. Health care reform in the United States will result, among other things, in the upstreaming of society’s efforts to prevent disease and improve health and well-being. Clark’s commitment to a LEEP curriculum offers students many opportunities to put principles learned in this concentration into practice in the campus and Worcester communities (e.g., actions taken to address smoking, obesity, fluoridation of drinking water, spread of sexually transmitted diseases, vaccinations …). The Public Health Concentration can be taken as a complement to any major.

Concentration Requirements

Students must take a minimum of six courses to fulfill the public health concentration.

Four core courses:

ID 108 - What is Public Health?
PHIL 130 - Medical Ethics
BIOL 109 - Microbiology
and a statistics course (BIOL 106 , PSYC 105 or GEOG 110 )

Two electives (1 taken from each group):

(A maximum of one of these two electives may count towards any other major, minor, or transcript designation. Non-elective courses may be double counted as required by the respective major, minor or concentration.)

Group I

Group II

HS 206 - In Sickness and In Health - Narrative and the Art of Healing
ID 121 - Culture, Health, and Development: What Makes Us Sick?
ID 207 - Culture, Health, and Power: Introduction to Medical Anthropology.
ID 248 - Gender and Health
ID 282 - Community Based Health Research
PH 298 - Internship
PHIL 104 - The AIDS Pandemic
PSYC 138 - Health Psychology
PSYC 265 - Psychology of Men
PSYC 292 - Capstone Research in Psychology
SOC 241 - Sociology of Medicine
SOC 250 - Community and Health: Non-Profit Grant Writing
SOC 277 - Social Determinants of Health and Public Policy

Program Faculty

David Thurlow, PhD. (Program Director)
Todd Livdahl, PhD.
Patrick Derr, PhD.
Esteban Cardemil, PhD.
Deborah Merrill, PhD.
Barbara Goldoftas, PhD.
Nicole Overstreet, PhD.
Marianne Sarkis, PhD.
Rosalie Torres Stone, PhD.

Courses

Courses offered within the last 2 Academic Year