As nation's largest health care system, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) provides medical and other services to over 8 million individuals that served our country. Honoring its obligation to these deserving Veterans, the system dedicates itself to a vulnerable population with numerous physical and mental health ramifications of military service, yet consistently outperforms other health systems in terms of quality metrics and patient satisfaction.

This course will explore today's opioid epidemic through the lenses of biology, history, the arts, and literature. We will critically examine and seek to understand the epidemic through the lenses of public health, human biology, medicine, sociology, political science, and public policy.

This course intended to provide students with practical knowledge to understand obesity epidemics in the U.S., and an overview of federal, state, and local policy approaches and national initiatives for preventing obesity, promoting healthy behaviors, and providing care to obese citizens. There will also be extensive discussion of evidence for the impact of policies on child and adolescent overweight, including ethnic/racial and socioeconomic disparities. Students will be provided with an opportunity to develop an intervention targeting any perspective of obesity.

The public health community - individuals and organizations - have an important role to play in shaping how populations receive and gain access to accurate health information. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention defines health communication as "the and use of communication strategies to inform and influence individual and community decisions that enhance health." This class will provide an introduction to the issues and methods associated with effective communication of health related information.

Not available at this time

What is the air we breathe composed of and where do various pollutants come from? How does exposure to air pollutants manifest in chronic disease? What level of exposure is too much and how can I minimize my exposure? The goal of this course is to answer these questions and provide you with tools to quantify the environmental risks of air pollution. Exposure to air pollution is unavoidable and ranks as one of the top ten global health risks in the development of non-communicable diseases. Air pollution represents a complex mixture of thousands of gaseous and particulate chemicals.

The culminating experience of the Public Health Sciences Major, this course is designed for students to synthesize and integrate their learning from previous coursework, internship, and extra-curricular activities in the discipline. Course leads to a project, presentation, initiative, or research paper that is present at the Statewide Research Conference. Class also helps develop skills in teamwork, communication and leadership. Satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BS-PubHlth majors.