Global Health: Local & International Disparities
Overview
Health is affected, for better or worse, by almost every human act. Examining human health across the globe — and in our backyard — reveals wide variations in health burdens on communities and nations. New knowledge and technologies have greatly advanced medicine and health care, yet life expectancy in Botswana is less than half what it is in Japan and Scandinavia, and within the United States infant mortality is twice as high for babies born to Black mothers than to White mothers. Global Health is an expansive and interdisciplinary field that requires researchers, policy–makers, and practitioners to integrate knowledge from diverse fields to address disparities in health outcomes both at home and abroad. This cluster challenges students to think outside the box for ways to understand and impact global health.
Courses
Seminar: Cultural Anthropology 80FCS International Law & Global Health
Catherine Admay, Visiting Faculty, Sanford Institute of Public Policy
This course will examine where and how international law intersects with
global health inequalities. In what instances has international law
been a positive force for addressing these inequalities and when has the
law itself compounded and extended the problem? Through two or three
case studies, students will be challenged to critically assess whether
the law — and what particular bodies of law — would be the most
appropriate. For example, if the families of working coffee farmers in
the Sidamo region of Ethiopia are suffering from severe malnutrition
while western coffee consumers pay top dollar for a bag of roasted Sidamo
label beans, what legal regimes might apply? Having a basic grasp of a
handful of leading rules systems (human rights, trade, intellectual
property, among others), students will then be asked to consider the
legal, political and ethical merits of pursuing better health outcomes
through resort to the law. We will consider the law as lawyers must —
attending to the technical elements and complexities — but we will also
seek to understand the extent to which the law's power resides as much
in its political punch or moral appeal. In short, the course will work
to situate international law and global health in the stream of strategic
choices available to those who call for better health by demanding
greater justice.
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Seminar: Sociology 112FCS Gender, Poverty and Health
Kim Blankenship, Associate Research Professor, Department of Sociology
Examines interconnections among gender, poverty, and health. Adopts global perspective
with focus on US and resource poor countries. Discusses frameworks for understanding
health as well as in depth case studies of particular health areas. Major focus on
HIV/AIDS.
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Seminar: Biology 92FCS Global Disease
Sherryl Broverman, Associate Professor of the Practice, Department of Biology
Biological, social, and cultural factors impacting global disease spread and/or reduction; current challenges in vaccination and disease control programs; Open only to students in the Focus Program.
Students will evaluate the factors - biological, social, and cultural – that impact
how diseases spread through populations, and that makes them easier or harder to
control. How can we use what we’ve learned from past attempts at disease elimination
to improve current programs? Students will learn the biology of major global diseases
caused by a range of pathogens, including TB, malaria, and smallpox. These diseases will
be used as case studies to address the evolution and ecology of disease; antibiotic
resistance; vaccine development and immunization programs; and tropical diseases versus
diseases of poverty. Other potential topics include polio, influenza, SARS and HIV.
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Seminar: GLHLTH 90FCS The Social Epidemiology of Obesity
Gary Bennett, Associate Research Professor, Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience
This Focus course is designed to broadly examine the causes
and consequences of obesity, both domestically and abroad, using a
social epidemiological perspective. Accordingly, heavy emphasis will be
placed on understanding the influence of social determinants on
obesity, common obesity-related comorbidities, and socio-demographic
disparities in obesity. Students will become familiar with common social
epidemiologic methods, so that they can interpret and critically analyze
findings in the obesity research literature. Special emphasis will be
placed on behavioral and policy-oriented obesity intervention solutions,
as well as the handling of the obesity epidemic in popular culture.
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Focus 99FCS.11 Special Topics in Focus: Local and International Disparities in Health
Sherryl Broverman, Associate Professor of the Practice, Department of Biology
Global Health is a rapidly growing field of study, but what is “global health”
and how does it differ from international health? Can one study global health issues in Durham,
North Carolina? This course will address the concept of “global health” and provide
opportunities for students to explore global health issues in depth with their peers,
faculty and guest speakers. The relevant themes and methodologies from each course will be used
to work through case studies and simulations as we explore the interrelationships between legal,
economic, biological, and epidemiological perspectives on global health: the local, the global, and
how they connect.
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