Courses

The course descriptions below are correct to the best of our knowledge as of June 2010. Instructors reserve the right to update and/or otherwise alter course descriptions as necessary after publication. The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. The Course Rotation Guide lists the expected semester a course will be taught. Paper copies are also available in the BUSPH Registrar’s office. Please refer to the published schedule of classes for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• SPH LW 800: Genetics, Law and Public Health
  This seminar is suitable for any student who wants to be prepared to identify and respond to legal and policy issues that arise when genetics is integrated with public health research and practice. Case studies based on practical problems and dilemmas form the basis of in-class exercises and written assignments. Analyzing the circumstances of these cases gives students opportunities to further their understanding of law and to link that understanding to other areas of knowledge while addressing realistic problems and dilemmas. Cases and related course materials cover a variety of circumstances including DNA banking, newborn screening programs, direct-to-consumer testing services, and genetic counseling.
• SPH LW 825: Ethical Dimensions of Public Health Policy
  This seminar explores the interface of bioethics and public policy. After an introduction to the foundational questions and problems of bioethics, and an exploration into the historical views of birth, life, and death, the class uses a series of paradigmatic cases to better understand when, if, and how to crate public health policy. Case studies include abortion; selective fetal termination; assisted reproductive technologies; genetic testing, screening, and therapy; fetal-maternal conflicts; the human genome project; human death; brain death; personal death; persistent vegetative coma; termination of life support; euthanasia; assisted suicide; and eugenics. The ultimate goal of this course is to analyze how bioethics can inform broad public policy in pluralistic society. Readings are from both classical and contemporary writings in ethics, law, medicine, public health policy, and human rights.
• SPH LW 830: Health Insurance, Health Reform and the Law
  The seminar examines recent and pending federal and state health insurance legislation to identify changes in the law and legal principles governing health insurance and health benefit programs in the U.S. Special attention is paid to Massachusetts as a model for federal legislation and the comparative advantages of federal and state governance. Students explore the key role(s) of insurance in the health system by analyzing and comparing federal and state laws governing different types of health benefit plans (including indemnity insurance, disease management, and consumer choice plans), and how reforms affect current law, including state licensure, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Topics include: basic concepts of insurance; accepting, managing and shifting financial risk; individual and employer mandates; insurance exchanges; contracting with providers; designing and administering health plans; defining benefits; and remedies for breach of contract and negligent care. This class meets at BU School of Law and follow the Law School class schedule
• SPH LW 840: Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights
  Health law, bioethics, and human rights are converging in challenging ways, especially at the national level (in both legislation and constitutional adjudication), and the international law level. This seminar will explore the convergence and its meaning for the law and society through specific case studies including post-9/11 proposals for mass quarantine; torture and force-feeding justifications in the GWOT; genetic engineering and the new reproductive technologies; the relationship between abortion and the death penalty; and the meaning of the “right to health.” This class is taught at BU School of Public Health and will meet the Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights Department captone requirement beginning in Spring 2009
• SPH LW 850: Legal Strategies to Reduce Health Risks
  This research seminar offers a systematic framework for determining when and how to use law to prevent or control health risks posed by diseases, bioterrorism, consumer products, personal behavior, and occupational hazards. Students will analyze and compare the suitability different legal strategies, such as criminal and civil prohibitions, isolation and quarantine, licensure, mandatory product standards, tort liability, disclosure requirements, and advertising restrictions. Emphasis is on the legal requirements for initiating and enforcing specific federal and state regulatory methods, their effectiveness, and differences between regulating personal behavior and commercial entities. Students will conduct guided research to develop a legal strategy to address a contemporary health risk.
• SPH LW 854: Mental Health Law
  Subjects discussed include an overview of clinical psychiatry, institutionalization, deinstitutionalization, the insanity defense, incompetence to stand trial, the right to treatment and the right to refuse treatment, involuntary commitment, dangerousness, the meaning of mental illness, the use of invasive treatments, psychotherapy, privacy, and professional ethics. Legal cases make up most of the course material.
• SPH LW 951: Directed Studies in Health Law, Bioethics, & Human Rights
  Directed Studies provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a full-time SPH faculty member. Students may register for a 1, 2, 3, or 4-credit directed study by submitting a paper registration form and a signed directed study proposal form. Directed studies with a non-SPH faculty member or an adjunct faculty member must be approved by and assigned to the department chair. Students are placed in a section by the Registrar’s Office according to the faculty member with whom they are working. Students may take no more than eight credits of directed study, directed research, or practica courses during their MPH education.
• SPH LW 952: Directed Research in Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights
  Directed Research provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a full-time SPH faculty member. Students may register for 1, 2, 3, or 4 credits. To register, students must submit a paper registration form and signed directed research proposal form. Students are placed in a section by the Registrar’s Office according to the faculty member with whom they are working. Students may take no more than eight credits of directed study, directed research, or practica courses during their MPH education.
• SPH MC 705: Safer Sex in the City: from science to policy
  Why do you need research-based knowledge about sex, sexuality, and how to apply this to public health? So you can understand and debate public health issues and controversies, such as STDs, contraception, and donor sperm and eggs. And maybe learn a little about yourself. This course will cover a range of topics related to sexuality and health application of this knowledge to program planning and policy.
• SPH MC 725: Women, Children and Adolescents: A Public Health Approach
  This course introduces students to the principles and practices of public health as they are applied to the health and development of women, infants, children and adolescents. Selected current topics, such as asthma, adolescent pregnancy, infant mortality, and family mental health, are studied in depth and used to illustrate how problems are understood, their distribution in diverse populations, and the content and quality of programs required to address them. Throughout the course, special attention is given to the impact of poverty, poor access to health care, and racial inequities on the health of families, as well as to the strengths that individuals and communities bring to the creation of solutions. By the end of the course students will be able to formulate an MCH-related public health question, conduct and write a literature review, write a policy memo, and critically assess a community organization based on a site visit. MC725 is the first required course in the MCH sequence.
• SPH MC 759: Perinatal Epidemiology
  Issues related to the perinatal period from the framework of epidemiologic methods will be examined in this course through critical review of epidemiologic studies and exploration of designs issues for this population. The course will examine the effect of both perinatal exposures and programmatic strategies on maternal and infant health. It will address classification issues related to commonly used data sources in perinatal epidemiology and challenges in assessing pregnancy exposures and outcomes. The final course project will require a written description of a study design on a perinatal issue. Although students will learn skills similar to those acquired in Reproductive Epidemiology (EP759), such as critically reviewing epidemiologic study designs, the issues discussed will differ and be focused on pregnancy and the neonatal period.
• SPH MC 763: Maternal and Child Health Policymaking
  This course explores the process by which U.S. national and state policymakers allocate resources to mothers and children. Beginning with an analysis of the evolution of U.S. maternal and child health (MCH) policy, it utilizes general policy models and case studies to examine the special features of legislative, executive, administrative, and judicial policymaking in MCH. The course examines how policymaking in MCH has traditionally been characterized by a greater reliance on regulatory and judicial bodies, as well as the frequent use of mothers and children as political symbols. This course is taught in seminar format with weekly readings and student-led discussion.
• SPH MC 770: Children with Special Health Care Needs
  The course presents an overview of issues related to the design and delivery of services for children with special health care needs and their families in the United States. It addresses the nature and extent of chronic illness and disability among children, the demographics of childhood disability, the legislative framework for health and social services for this population, and the organization and implementation of services at local, state and federal levels. Throughout the course, the central role of family in the child's life and the importance of family-centered service systems are emphasized. The challenge of balancing complex care needs with needs related to childhood social and cognitive development is highlighted. Students are given opportunities to enhance skills in the areas of needs assessment, program and policy development, and evaluation through class discussion, readings, and assignments.
• SPH MC 771: Topics in MCH
  This course addresses new and emerging issues in the field of maternal and child health at an intermediate level. It is accessible to students of all concentrations and backgrounds. Topics vary each semester; for information regarding the current offerings, please refer to the print or web-based School of Public Health schedule.
• SPH MC 775: Health Disparities And Vulnerable Populations
  This course is focused on strengthening public health students’ knowledge, skills and ability to construct a critical appraisal of the determinants, distribution, causes, mechanisms, systems and consequences of health disparities. The course requirements, including the class presentations, help students in acquiring intermediate skills in design of public health interventions targeted toward understanding, reducing and ultimately eliminating health disparities among and across MCH populations. Students will gain program evaluation skills through evaluation of allocation of resources and provision of health services in a specific community-based program. The course is designed to help students translate current knowledge and research into specific public health strategies. This class also carries concentration credit for the Social & Behavioral Sciences concentration.
• SPH MC 782: Women and Substance Use
  This course offers a window on the experiential context in which women -- including adolescent girls --develop substance abuse problems, and the health and social consequences for them and for their families. We will examine the complex, dynamic interaction of risk and resilience as it affects individuals, families, and communities, and learn about the interplay between substance abuse and co-existing mental health problems. The course will cover effective practices for screening and clinical assessment, gender-specific and family-centered treatment, prevention of relapse, and the importance of addressing co-morbidities as part of public health strategies. Throughout the course, we will consider special MCH populations, such as pregnant women. By the end of the course, students will demonstrate a deeper understanding of the complexity and inter-relatedness of personal and social environments in which substance abuse and mental health issues occur within families and strategies and policies for prevention, detection, and treatment. A research paper will be required.
• SPH MC 785: Reproductive Health Advocacy
  This course prepares students to design, lead, or collaborate in advocacy efforts around reproductive health policy in the United States. It allows students to focus on an array of issues related to women’s fertility and its regulation and to use multiple frameworks--public health science, law, social history, religion and politics--to frame and argue their positions for purposes of advocacy. The course begins with an overview of the social and political history of fertility control and current reproductive health services and policies. We then examine debates at the state and national levels in preparation for advocacy skill-building and practice, including a visit to the State House, interaction with a panel of advocacy organizations, participation in mock legislative hearings, and the writing of an “op ed” article for a local or national newspaper. By the end of the course students demonstrate enhanced competence in critical analysis, argument, writing and presentation to audiences that range from public officials to the readers of popular press. Interested students may append the course with directed study or practicum with Prof. McCloskey to complete a project at a reproductive health advocacy organization.
• SPH MC 786: Immigrant Family Health: Public Health Across Borders
  This course focuses on low-income immigrants in the U.S. and applies a family and community health perspective to the study of their health and well-being. It begins with an overview of how political, economic, cultural factors at the global and local levels shape the migration patters and health of immigrants and refugees. We then examine specific immigrant groups and health issues, with attention to interventions that engage community members in taking action. Students will gain critical skills in contextual analysis, community based participatory research, and project design.
• SPH MC 795: Adolescent Health: Understanding Public Health Risk and Opportunity
  This course equips public health students from all departments and disciplines to take on the analytic and programmatic challenges presented by adolescents. The course begins with a synthesis of perspectives on adolescence: biological, behavioral, cultural, economic, and public health. A wide range of data sources and analysis serve as the basis to frame current debates on specific issues. The course continues with in-depth treatment of several key challenges to public health researchers and practitioners such as obesity, eating disorders, LGBTQ health, teen pregnancy and birth, health disparities, and access to health care. For each topic, we will examine the epidemiologic landscape and theoretical and empirical evidence base for public health interventions across a spectrum of models. The course includes field observations, site visits, and multiple opportunities to interact with practitioners of adolescent health and advocacy.
• SPH MC 802: Leading Community Health Initiatives: Medicine and Public Health as Partners
  This course is designed for medical and public health students who seek the leadership skills needed to develop and implement community health initiatives. Students will work in theory and practice to address the question, “How can we as young physicians and public health professionals work with community partners to lead change for better health?” By the end of the course students will be able to work in teams to apply the Challenge Model to develop and implement a community-based health initiative in the context of and in partnership with a community health center or organization. Meets with IH802. Students may not take MC802 and IH802 for degree credit.

Note that this information may change at any time.

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