Major in Global and Community Health
Global and Community Health majors address social inequities and health. In this major, you will study innovative and community-engaged approaches to overcome health inequities and promote health justice. Majors learn how to read statistical data and how to communicate it to broader audiences, how to analyze relationships between the local, national and global scales, and how to identify structural causes of individual outcomes. The major provides an academic space for understanding your own and others’ lived experiences of health disparities, using arts, humanities and social sciences methodologies, while building knowledge and skills that empower you to promote change. The major offers a humanities and social-science infused track toward a future career in medicine and allied professions such as public health, health advocacy and health administration.
Majors will:
- Identify connections between climate change, environment, and health inequities, globally and locally.
- Employ critical approaches to recognize the multiple dimensions of power, violence and inequities.
- Recognize and use different disciplinary methods: sociology, ethnography, history, literary analysis/critical reading, Science and Technology Studies, ethical reasoning, statistical analysis, feminist and critical race theories, creative arts, communication and storytelling.
- Gain locally grounded knowledge and global perspectives; analyze relationships between the local, national and global scales.
- Apply multi-dimensional analyses and ethical reasoning to health issues relevant to specific communities.
- Gain relevant qualifications and skills for employment and postgraduate study in community-oriented health.
The B.A. degree in Global and Community Health consists of 52 units (13 courses).
Lower-division requirements:
The lower-division requirements (4 courses, 16~17 units) consist of a course taught by SEHE core faculty that introduces theories and methodologies for the study of community health, global and local health inequities, and a course in health and environmental data and their social and cultural implications. In addition, students must take one Lower Division CNAS course and one Lower Division CHASS course relevant to health inequities and global perspectives.
- SEHE 002 Health Equity and Health Justice
- One course in Data Analysis
- SEHE 005 Statistics, Health and Society
- STAT 004 Elements of Data Science
- or equivalent
- One Lower Division course in health-related natural sciences
- BCH 010 Introduction to Nutrition
- BIOL 030 Human Reproduction and Sexual Behavior
- BIOL 034 Human Heredity and Evolution
- BIOL 040 Disease and History: From the Bubonic Plague to Aids
- BPSC 011 Plants and Human Affairs
- BPSC 021 California’s Cornucopia: Food From the Field to Your Table
- BPSC 050/ENTM 050 The Evidence for Evolution
- CBNS 004 Concepts in Medical Cell Biology
- CBNS 010 The Human Brain: A User’s Guide
- ENSC 001 Introduction to Environmental Science
- ENSC 002 Introduction to Environmental Science: Environmental Quality
- ENSC 004 Climate Change in California
- GEO 003 Headlines in the History of Life
- GEO 004 Natural Hazards and Disasters
- GEO 007 Minerals and Human Health
- PLPA 010 Microbes and Society: A Window
- One Lower Division course in health, inequities and global perspectives
- ANTH 020 Culture, Health, and Healing
- BLKS 001 Black Study
- GBST 001 Global History, Culture, and Ideas
- GBST 002 Global Socioeconomic and Political Processes
- ENGL 022 Writing Red
- GSST013/GSST 013S Gender and Disability
- MHHS 001 Introduction to Medical and Health Humanities
- PHIL 009/PHIL 009H Biomedical Ethics
- POSC 017 Politics of the Underdeveloped World
- SFCS 001 Introduction to Speculative Fiction and Cultures of Science
- An Upper Division course in c) below may be used to fulfill this requirement.
Upper-division requirements:
The upper-division requirements (9 courses, 36 units) are designed to cover a breadth of social sciences and humanities approaches and topics in health and medicine. Students are required to take a methods course on community research design, ethics, data collection and public engagement; a second core required course covers intersections between health and environmental issues. In addition, students will take a series of specialized topical courses in global and community health. An emphasis is placed on understanding social structures that create health inequities and the needs of disadvantaged communities. (Courses are subject to approval by the SEHE curriculum advisor. Students are responsible for fulfilling the prerequisites). Students are given a few options to complete the 4 unit capstone requirement.
- SEHE 101 Community Research and Anti-Oppressive Methods
- One of the following two options:
- SEHE 105/GSST 171 Environmental Health and Social Justice
- SEHE 106(S) Movements & Advocacy in Environment & Health
- Four Upper Division courses in Global and Community Health (must include at least two SEHE courses)
- ANTH 144F/GSST 185 Gender, Race, and Medicine
- AST 180/JPN 180/MCS 180 Japanese Documentary
- BLKS 114 Black Healing Traditions
- ECON 129 Health Economics
- ENSC 103 Environmental Pollution and Health
- ETST 116 Medicine Ways of Native Americans
- GBST 102 Global Meditation Practices and the Contemplative Traditions of South Asia
- GBST 103 Food and Globalization
- MCS 106 Disability Culture and Media
- MCS 117 Posthuman Bodies in Science, Media, and Culture
- PHIL 167 Biomedical Ethics
- POSC 180(S) The Politics of Public Health
- RLST 110 Yoga: Ancient and Modern
- RLST 122 Medicine and Asian Religions in Global Circulation
- SEHE 110 Environmental Health in Southern California
- SEHE 116 Intersectionality, Climate Emotions, and Mental Health
- SEHE 123(S)/ GSST 161(S) Gender and Science
- SEHE 129 Food Justice
- SEHE 161/ GSST 164 Reproductive Justice
- SEHE 162 Giving Birth
- SEHE 163 Globalizing Roe: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion Worldwide
- SEHE 172 Public Health: Then and Now
- SEHE 173/ HIST 107 Disease and Society
- SEHE 174 Eugenics, Disability and Social Justice
- SEHE 175 Transforming Toxic Jobs: Health and Work in the United States
- SEHE 176 Race, Gender, and Health: Diasporic Perspectives
- SEHE 178/ SOC 144 Interpersonal Relationship Violence
- SEHE 181/ ANTH 144I Anthropology of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
- SEHE 182/ ANTH 144K Drugs and Culture
- SEHE 183/ ANTH 144N Anthropology of Global Health
- SEHE 185ABC/SPN 108ABC Spanish for the Health Professions
- SEHE 189 Special Topics in Global and Community Health
- SOC 120 Society and Mental Health
- SOC 127 Sociological Determinants of Health
- SOC 167 Medical Sociology
- SOC 183H Aging in America
- One course in gender, race, and structural inequities
- ANTH 127 Political Anthropology
- ANTH 142 (E-Z) Black and Black Diaspora Studies
- ETST 102 The Political Economy of Race and Class
- ETST 111 Ethnic Politics: Practicum in Political Change
- ETST 113 Black Feminist Theory and Activism
- ETST 128(S)/SOC 128(S) Chicano Sociology
- ETST 163E Introduction to Queer Studies
- ETST 179 Race and the Environment: Nature, Colonialism, and Justice
- GSST 107 Feminisms, Race, and Antiracisms: Critical Theories and Intersectional Perspectives
- GSST 109 Women, Politics, and Social Movements: Global Perspectives
- GSST 113 Queer Theory
- GSST 134 Queer Identities and Movements in the United States
- GSST 136 Women and Grassroots Organizing
- GSST 176 Gender, Human Rights, and Transnationalism
- GSST 181 Feminisms and Environmentalisms
- MCS 109 Algorithms and Everyday Life
- MCS 160 Race, State Violence, and Incarceration in the U.S.
- MCS 189 Political Culture of Race and Policing
- SOC 161 Immigration and Society
- One Capstone course
- SEHE 190 Special Studies (minimum of 4 units)
- SEHE 198-I Internships (minimum of 4 units)