Global Health Program

[ graduate program | courses ]

Social Science Building, Second Floor
http://globalhealthprogram.ucsd.edu

All courses, faculty listings, and curricular and degree requirements described herein are subject to change or deletion without notice.

Global health is at once an increasingly popular new field of study, an urgent social concern, and a powerful interdisciplinary intellectual synthesis aimed at understanding and productively intervening in processes of health, illness, and healing across the globe. Two senses of the term global structure the program’s curriculum: The first defines a geographical space that is planetary and international; the second is an intellectual scope that is holistic and interdisciplinary. Undergraduate degrees in the Global Health Program (BA and minor) are designed to provide students with an in-depth understanding of factors related to illness, health, and healing from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective that transcends national borders and regional interests and takes cultural difference and cross-cultural diversity fully into account. Global health is directly concerned with achieving equity in health for people worldwide. It is a synthesis of population-based prevention, individual-level clinical care, health policy and program development, and cross-cultural understanding of variations and commonalities in the experiences with and causes of illness, the process of becoming and staying well, and the practices of healing. 

The Global Health Program covers a wide range of topics, including health care, health education, environmental effects on health, infectious disease, mental health, health inequalities, medical sequelae of natural disaster or political violence, indigenous healing practices, nutrition, and reproductive health. The program’s degrees are designed to be intellectually comprehensive, integrating the social sciences, biological sciences, and humanities. In addition, they combine academic and experiential learning, as well as strike a pedagogical balance between the acquisition of hard skills, theory, and real-world knowledge. An important feature of the program is a Global Health Field Experience at a research, service, or clinical site either in the United States or abroad. This program of study helps to prepare students for a career in research and teaching, immigrant service-providing organizations, government agencies, health sciences, or law. The unique research and writing opportunities offered by this minor also make it an excellent preparation for medical and graduate school.

Horizons Honors Thesis Program

During spring quarter of a student’s junior year, global health majors may apply to be a part of the two-quarter honors thesis seminar, open only to global health majors in the BA and BS. The seminar will reflect the unique resources of UC San Diego’s college system by treating the relation between global health and each of the themes highlighted by the colleges: international relations, environmentalism, law/ethics, technology, humanities, and public service. The seminar will also provide an opportunity to expand, deepen, and share the insights of their Global Health Field Experience with members of their cohort.

The first quarter will consist of intensive reading and discussion in fields related to each student’s primary interest and building on their field experience. The second quarter will be a workshop with critical input from all participants focused on preparing a senior thesis that will provide an important credential for students in the next stage of their careers and as they prepare applications for graduate academic or professional training. The Horizons of Global Health capstone conference, held annually in the spring quarter, will assemble all global health majors and minors and be open to the campus community. The conference features a guest speaker with a distinguished reputation in global health along with presentations of theses by graduating participants.

Eligibility:

Students completing the honors thesis program can apply the coursework toward one medical social science elective and one medical humanities elective.

The Bachelor of Arts in Global Health
(seventeen courses/sixty-eight units)

All courses applied to the major must receive a letter grade of C– or better. The major will require nine core courses, the primary function of which is to ground all students in the hard skills, analytic tools, and fluency in the debates expected of someone with an expertise in global health.

I. Lower Division Core Requirements (three courses/twelve units)

All students will take the following:

One of the following introduction courses:

One of the following courses:

One statistics course:

II. Upper-Division Core Requirements (four courses/sixteen units)

All students will take the following:

One course in policy analysis (prerequisites listed in parentheses):

III. Field Experience Requirement

(details below)

IV. Electives (ten courses/forty units)

Eight of the ten electives must be upper division. The elective requirement is designed to reinforce the interdisciplinary character of the field of global health. Students must have course work across the major disciplines.

The Bachelor of Science in Global Health
(twenty-four courses/ninety-six units)

I. Lower-Division Core Requirements (twelve courses/forty-eight units)

Complete two of the following courses:

Complete one year of biology: BILD 1, BILD 2, BILD 3

Complete one year of chemistry and lab: CHEM 6A-B-C and 7L

Complete one year of mathematics and statistics: MATH 10A-B and MATH 11 or PSYC 60 or MATH 20A-B and MATH 11 or PSYC 60

II. Upper-Division Core Requirements (four courses/sixteen units)

All students will take the following:

III. Field Experience Requirement

(details below)

IV. Electives (eight courses/thirty-two units)

There are eight electives required, all of which must be upper division. The elective requirement is designed to reinforce the interdisciplinary character of the field of global health.

Global Health Field Experience Requirement:

The Global Health Field Experience project will be carried out at a research, service, or clinical site either in the United States or abroad. Field Experience will be approved by the advisory committee, along with the Study Abroad UC San Diego office (for international placements) and Academic Internship Program (for domestic placements). The project will focus on issues relevant to global health, including health care, health education, environmental effects on health, infectious disease, mental health, health disparities, medical sequelae of natural disaster or political violence, indigenous healing practices, nutrition, and reproductive health. In accord with the campus’s Education Initiative, the Global Health Field Experience will enhance knowledge, skills, and sensitivities, thus engaging “mind, hands, and heart” to create a learning outcome that is scientific, pragmatic, and humanistic.

Field Experience Requirements
The Field Experience must meet the following criteria:

Credit-bearing field experience: Upon approval by petition, a student may enroll in a maximum of two Independent Study (GLBH 199) or Directed Group Study (GLBH 198) courses under mentorship of an affiliated faculty member. This will provide academic credit for the noncredit-bearing Field Experience, through required readings, reflective journals, papers, etc., as determined by agreement between the student and faculty member. The academic result will be to place their Field Experience in the context of the interdisciplinary scholarly literature on global health. When credit is granted either through the program itself or through our GLBH Independent Study/Directed Group Study, this credit will count as an elective toward the major.

Elective Courses

Biological Sciences:

One biological science elective must be upper division

Lower Division (for BA only):

Upper Division: (prerequisites listed in parentheses)

Medical Social Sciences:

Anthropology

Communication

Critical Gender Studies

Economics

Ethnic Studies

Family Medicine and Public Health

Global Health

Political Science

Psychology

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Sociology

Urban Studies and Planning

Medical Humanities:

Anthropology

Critical Gender Studies

Global Health

History

Literature

Philosophy

Global Processes (required for BA only):

Anthropology

Communication

Critical Gender Studies

Ethnic Studies

Latin American Studies

Political Science

Sociology

Significant Writing Courses (required for BA only):

The Global Health Minor (seven courses/twenty-eight units)

The Global Health minor covers a wide range of topics relevant to global health including health care, health education, environmental effects on health, infectious disease, mental health, health inequalities, medical sequelae of natural disaster or political violence, indigenous healing practices, nutrition, and reproductive health. This program of study helps to prepare students for a career in research and teaching, immigrant service-providing organizations, government agencies, health sciences, or law. The unique research and writing opportunities offered by this minor also make it an excellent preparation for medical and graduate school.

The minor consists of a total of seven courses (twenty-eight units), at least five of which must be upper-division courses. All courses applied to the minor must receive a letter grade of C– or better.

I. Required Core Courses (three courses/twelve units)

All students will take the following required courses, which will introduce them to the field of global health from the dual perspective of public health and the health sciences on the one hand and the medical social sciences on the other.

Choose one of the following introduction courses:

Choose two of the following courses:

II. Health-Related Biological Science (choose one)

All students will take at least one biological science course relevant to global health, selected from the approved list of electives for the minor.

Lower Division:

Upper Division: (prerequisites listed in parentheses)

Taking any of these courses to fill this requirement of the minor does not preclude a student from taking another course in this list as an elective for the minor.

III. Elective Course Work (choose three):

Anthropology

Critical Gender Studies

Communication

Economics

Ethnic Studies

Family Medicine and Public Health

Global Health

History

Literature

Rady School of Management

Philosophy

Psychology

Political Science

Revelle Global Seminars

Sociology

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Urban Studies and Planning

IV. Global Health Minor Field Experience (Optional)

Global Health minors may choose to complete a 100-hour Global Health Field Experience requirement to complement their course work.

The Field Experience project will be carried out at a research, service, or clinical site either in the United States or abroad. Field Experience will be approved by the advisory committee, along with the Study Abroad UC San Diego office (for international placements) and Academic Internship Program (for domestic placements). The project will focus on issues relevant to global health, including health care, health education, environmental effects on health, infectious disease, mental health, health disparities, medical sequelae of natural disaster or political violence, indigenous healing practices, nutrition, and reproductive health. In accord with the campus’s Education Initiative, the Global Health Field Experience component will enhance knowledge, skills, and sensitivities, thus engaging “mind, hands, and heart” to create a learning outcome that is scientific, pragmatic, and humanistic.

Field Experience Requirement

The Field Experience must meet the following criteria:

Credit-bearing field experience: Upon approval by petition, a student may enroll in a maximum of two Independent Study (GLBH 199) or Directed Group Study (GLBH 198) courses under mentorship of an affiliated faculty member. This will provide academic credit for the noncredit-bearing field experience through required readings, reflective journals, papers, etc., as determined by agreement between the student and faculty member. The academic result will be to place their field experience in the context of the interdisciplinary scholarly literature on global health. When credit is granted either through the program itself or through our GLBH Independent Study/Directed Group study, this credit will count as an elective toward the minor.