This course examines comparative international experiences to better understand the challenges related with health insurance, financing and delivery of health care services, access, and cost of health services and pharmaceuticals in OECD countries.

This course examines current advances in environmental health science via lectures from UMass faculty with research programs related to environmental health, UMass PhD students in the EHS program, as well as visiting scholars. Seminar topics will change from week to week and will include topics such as pollution, exposure assessments, mechanistic toxicology, environmental health policy, environmental epidemiology, and others.

Students will develop fundamental skills in epidemiologic research, including data collection, data management, data analysis, and interpretation of results. A major emphasis of the course will be to provide students with practical experience in managing and analyzing research datasets.

Most of us can think of something risky, but what is risk? How is risk defined and quantified? And what do we do when an action, product or intervention has both risks and benefits? This course will dive into several topics in public health that are considered to have both risks and benefits including GMOs, water fluoridation, chemicals in sunscreen, and medical imaging techniques. Students will also have the opportunity to dig deeper into a topic of their choosing to explore how risks and benefits are balanced for individuals and populations.

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.

This course is an introduction to global health from an interdisciplinary perspective. It will examine issues that affect population health the world over and policy recommendations to prevent emerging and re-emerging diseases.

This is a stand-alone independent study designed by the student and faculty sponsor that involves frequent interaction between instructor and student. Qualitative and quantitative enrichment must be evident on the proposed contract before consent is given to undertake the study.