About the Community and Global Health Concentration

Global health concerns are prominent in public discourse. The HIV/AIDS epidemic, the health impact of global warming, the threat of global pandemic disease, the American health care crisis, and obesity, malnutrition, and food supply exemplify the types of urgent public health challenges that pervade the daily news and fuel policy debates. Effective solutions rely on understanding complex phenomena that play out at the level of local communities as well as on the global stage, such as the impacts of environmental degradation, war and civil unrest, immigration patterns, cultural practices, and differential access to preventive programs and treatments. The concentration in Community and Global Health provides students with an array of analytical frameworks for understanding the complexities of population health and offers opportunities to integrate and apply these frameworks within the context of course work, civic engagement, and independent research.

The Community and Global Health concentration builds on the strong ties between the liberal arts and the core concepts of public health -- a diverse, multidisciplinary field unified around the examination of human and animal health at the population level. Recognizing the central importance of health within a global context, the issues, theories, and methodologies presented in this concentration educate students in critical and quantitative reasoning, writing, and integrative learning. Macalester faculty approved the concentration in May 2008.

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