Online University Programs

Classes begin Tuesday, January 21, 2025.

Women's Global Health Movements (Certificate requirement)

This course offers a survey of women’s global health movements with a focus on different forms of inequality and health impacts related to gender, sexuality, race, and class. The course explores these health issues by drawing on a wide range of fields such as sociology, political science, anthropology, history, feminist studies, and public health. Topics may include how race, gender, and class intersect with the health care system, and how environmental justice and health justice struggles are linked to other struggles against inequality. The course also examines case studies of contemporary and historical struggles by everyday people who organized and mobilized to demand health justice.

The Global Pharmaceutical Economy and Health

Nearly all modern health crises share at least one concern: access to medicine. The crisis might feel private, like a personal struggle with mental health. Or it might encompass national tragedies, like the United States’ decades-long opioid crisis. Or the Covid-19 pandemic, which has impacted the health — whether physical, mental, or economic — of every person in every corner of the world. This class explores the political and economic context in which the pharmaceutical industry has evolved and its implications for individual and community health. It prepares students to advocate for fair research and distribution of life-saving medicines as a necessary component of an equitable health care system.

Global Food Politics: Health Consequences

Enough food is produced internationally to feed the entire global population, so why do over 795 million people in the world go hungry? And why is so much of the food we produce unhealthy, causing chronic illness, malnutrition, and obesity? This class examines shifting patterns of food production from the traditional family farm to industrialized agriculture and transnational export chains. Students will learn how economic and public policies shape the domestic and global food system and explore the health consequences for patients and communities around the world.

Online University Programs