PROGRAM IN GLOBAL HEALTH STUDIES

Global health is a popular field of work and study for Americans, with an increasing number of medical trainees and practitioners, as well as people without medical training, going abroad to volunteer in areas where there are few health care practitioners or resources. In addition, college undergraduates, as well as medical trainees and practitioners, are going abroad in increasing numbers to conduct research in areas with few health care resources. But all of these endeavors, though often entered into with the best of intentions, are beset with ethical questions, concerns, and dilemmas, and can have unintended consequences. In this course, students will assess these ethical challenges. In so doing, students will examine core ethical codes, guidelines, and principals – such as solidarity, social justice, and humility – so they will be able to ethically assess global health practices in a way that places an emphasis on the core goal of global health: reducing health inequities and disparities. 

This upper-level seminar in medical anthropology examines the role of social markers of difference including race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality, age and religion in current debates and challenges in the theory and practice of global health. We will explore contemporary illness experiences and therapeutic interventions in sociocultural and historical context through case studies from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as embodiment, medicalization, structural violence, the social determinants of health, and biopolitics. Central questions of the seminar include: How do social categories of difference determine disease and health in individuals and collectivities? How is medical science influenced by economic and political institutions and by patient mobilization? How does social and economic inclusion/exclusion govern access to treatment as well as care of the self and others? The course will provide advanced instruction in anthropological and related social scientific research methods as they apply to questions of social inequality and public health policy in both the United States and in emerging economic powers. The course draws from historical accounts, contemporary ethnographies, public health literature, media reports, and films.

The first objective of this course is to introduce students to the many ways that water impacts our world. We will discuss what the international recommendations for safely managed water are and the health and social consequences of water insecurity. The second objective is explore why there is such variety in water insecurity worldwide. These discussions will be guided by the socio-ecological framework, in which dimensions ranging from the individual to the geopolitical are considered. Influences on access to water will be broadly considered; we will draw on literature in global health, ethnography, the life sciences, and public policy. The third objective is to develop critical thinking and writing abilities to reflect on the multi-dimensional causes and consequences of water insecurity. 

Disease knows no borders. Both pathogens and lifestyles move around the world and the people of every country share the risks.   The responsibility for ensuring the public health rests with governments at local, national and international levels.   Public health interventions require cooperation and partnerships at each level and with civil society organizations, corporations, businesses and individuals.  Advances in technology can significantly reduce the burden of disease and improve the quality of health and life.  To effectively address global health challenges, technology must be integrated into health systems in ways that are both appropriate and sustainable.  These interventions are affected by public policies, availability of resources and theories of public health and disease.  Existing health organizations are increasingly challenged by the scope and magnitude of the current and future threats to public health such as the AIDS pandemic; the emergence of new and more virulent infectious diseases; the threats of bio-terrorism; growing resistance to antibiotics; lack of basic infrastructure of water, sanitation and inadequate access to drugs in developing countries; and overabundance of foods and complications from affluence, leading to health problems such as diabetes in higher income countries.  This course will examine the global epidemiology of these diseases and threats to the populations of the world, and the current technological and organizational strategies that have been established to respond.  A series of diseases and geographical regions will be analyzed to consider how the international community uses technology and organizes its response to current problems in global public health.  Special attention will be given to examples of effective technologies and intervention strategies. 

This course will provide an overview of current theory and research in human population biology. The course will focus on the influence of ecological and social factors on various aspects of human biology (e.g. metabolism, growth, nutritional status, disease patterns). The adaptation concept will first be presented, discussed, and critiqued. We will then examine how adaptation to different ecological stressors (e.g. temperature, solar radiation, high altitude, diet/nutrition) promotes human biological diversity.

While North Africa (the Maghrib) is often considered an appendage of the Muslim Middle East, this Mediterranean region merits study on its own, given its French colonial past and its connections to both sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. This course introduces students to the region through text and expressive culture (visual culture and music). Required readings will include one book or its equivalent in articles per week, drawing from anthropology, related social sciences and humanities, and historical fiction. In-depth study of Amazigh (‘Berber') and rural populations will complement the study of Arab and urban populations in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Major themes include language and expression, orality and literacy, colonialism, nationalism, religion, migration, and gender. Assessments are based on active participation, weekly responses, discussion facilitation, and two synthesis papers bringing together the readings around a theme.

In response to the negative social effects of globalization and industrialization on the contemporary food system, there has developed increased attention to questions of sustainability, food justice, and food sovereignty. While such concepts are useful for thinking about liberatory food futures more generally, they often draw upon foundational Indigenous concepts without directly naming them as such. This course, then, focuses on new discourses about food sovereignty by highlighting (rather than obscuring) the linkages between decolonial or sovereign food futures and histories of erasure and dispossession of Native peoples. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, course readings draw from the fields of Food Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Pacific Island Studies in the form of academic articles, cookbooks, short film, and poetry. Throughout, we will question the potentialities of food sovereignty within the settler state, whether dietary decolonization is possible in the so-called age of the Anthropocene, and the limits of working within and against today's legacies of the colonial food system.

Health systems and technologies to address health problems of the world’s underserved populations, with special emphasis on developing countries.

This course focuses on the management of nonprofit organizations. Topics include (a) the dynamics of the social sector, (b) identifying stakeholders, (c) governing and leading nonprofit organizations, (d) communication strategies for enhancing capacity, (e) organizational assessment, and (f) obtaining and managing resources. This year, students will self select into teams working on specific identified projects for clients. 

Emphysema, lead poisoning, and other pollutant-inflicted diseases demonstrate that our exploitation of the natural world endangers not just polar bears and pollinators but people, as well. This is not, however, a realization as recent as the Paris Accord or the Flint water crisis. For hundreds of years, scientists, physicians, and even poets have described the volatile, sometimes sickening interactions among pollution, the environment, and the human body. And so, in addition to modern pathologies of toxicity, students in this course will explore historical literary depictions of bubonic plague, smallpox, and even spontaneous combustion as they theorize the medical consequences of human pollution. We will see that even historically distant authors like Thomas Dekker, Charles Dickens, and Margaret Atwood all write with an eye toward environmental justice and medical access for society's most ailing members—human, animal, and botanical alike.

In 1492 the New World became a crucible for the exchange of diseases, medications, and healing practices of American, European, and African origin. This course explores change and continuity in the healing arts and sciences in Latin America and the Caribbean in the centuries since. A key angle of inquiry will be the ways global frameworks help to make sense of local practice and how local knowledge informed national, hemispheric, and Atlantic developments in public health and medicine. Topics include Aztec medicine and conceptions of the human body; the "Columbian Exchange" of diseases, animals, and pharmaceuticals; the global commodification of American botanical knowledge (anti-syphilitics and anti-malarials such as Peruvian bark); Catholicism, shamanism, and other ritual frameworks for healing; modern disease eradication campaigns; and medical pluralism in Latin America today.

An exploration of a variety of issues that have arisen in medical practice and biological research and development, focusing particularly on the physician/patient relationship through a focus on a series of clinical cases. A central question involves the nature and objectives of medicine, and how the physician engages with that nature and pursues those objectives.

Characteristics of successful programs in a variety of areas, including human development, education, social welfare, and health promotion.