Concentration
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.
Community and Global Health Concentration
Structure of the Concentration
A concentration in Community and Global Health consists of a required Epidemiology course (INTD 225), five (5) health-related elective courses, and a substantive community engagement experience or advanced research project that is tied to a 1-credit Senior Seminar (INTD 411).
A. Epidemiology (INTD 225): This is a foundational course that provides all CGH concentrators with the basic statistical tools needed to examine the distribution of health and disease in human populations. This course can be taken at any point in a student's undergraduate career.
B. Five elective courses. Macalester offers more than 30 health-related courses in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences that count toward the CGH concentration. As with all Macalester concentrations, course selection must adhere to the following rules:
C. No more than two electives can be in a single department.
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No more than two electives can be in a single department.
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Electives must be drawn from at least two different divisions (e.g. the courses
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cannot solely be in the social sciences or the natural sciences).
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At least three electives must be 200-level or above.
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Up to two courses may be taken at another institution or abroad.
Students are encouraged to seek out a CGH faculty member for advice on course planning.
Currently, CGH electives include the following courses:
ANTH 239 - Medical Anthropology
ANTH 241 - Anthropology of Death and Dying
ANTH 380 - Stigma and Disabilities
BIOL 112 - Health in the Anthropocene
BIOL 117 - Women, Health and Reproduction
BIOL 402 - Seminar in Virology
EDUC 230 - Community Youth Development in Multicultural America
ENVI 219 - Environmental Health and Development
ENVI 237 - Environmental Justice
GEOG 258 - Geography of Environmental Hazards
GEOG 475 - Health Geography Seminar
HIST 164 - Global Health Histories
HIST 271 - Uses and Abuses: Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
HIST 350 - Race, Gender, and Medicine
INTL 246 - Global Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
INTL 282 - Introduction to International Public Health
INTL 382 - Poverty, Health, and Development
POLI 205 - US Politics and Policymaking (when taught with a focus on Public Health)
PSYC 252 - Distress, Dysfunction, and Disorder: Perspectives on the DSM
PSYC 368 - Psychology of/and Disability
PSYC 374 - Clinical and Counseling Psychology
PSYC 380 - Community Psychology and Public Health
WGSS 248 - Struggles for Reproductive Justice: A Global Perspective
WGSS 250 - Race, Gender, and Medicine
Additionally, you may select up to ONE (1) of the following methods courses to count as an elective toward the CGH concentration:
ANTH 230 - Ethnographic Interviewing
ANTH 232 - Field Methods and Research Design
ECON 381 - Introduction to Econometrics
GEOG 225 - Introduction to Geographic Information Systems
GEOG 277 - Qualitative Research Methods in Geography
STAT 155 - Introduction to Statistical Modeling
POLI 269 - Empirical Research Methods
PSYC 201 - Research in Psychology I
SOCI 269 - Social Science Inquiry
D. Civic Engagement or Research Project + 1-Credit Senior Seminar (INTD 411)
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Project: A substantial project focusing on the health and/or well-being of human populations. This requirement will be fulfilled through either:
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1) A civic engagement experience of at least 75 hours. This could be either an internship (paid or unpaid; with or without credit) or a volunteer position either in the Twin Cities, or some other location in the U.S. or abroad (e.g. study away). The experience must include a reflection component and site supervisor evaluation. [Include in the seminar]
Or
- 2) An advanced research project, which may be completed for academic credit in courses, independent studies, honors theses, or capstone programs within the student's major or may be non-credit bearing work in the summer, winter break, or the academic year conducted under the supervision of a faculty member.
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1-Credit Senior Seminar. This is a one-credit culminating seminar, meeting weekly for one hour in the spring term, in which issues in community and global health are discussed from an interdisciplinary perspective. In addition to sponsoring lectures by notable public health professionals, the seminar will also provide opportunities for students to share the work they have done on their CGH project in a public presentation near the end of the semester. Credit for the CGH project is earned upon successful completion of the senior seminar. Typically, this seminar will be taken in the student's senior year, but it may be taken in earlier years provided that the student completes the project before the end of the seminar.
Students are strongly encouraged to seek out a CGH faculty member for advice on projects that would count toward the concentration.