Population Studies
- POP 502/SOC 532: Research Methods in DemographySource materials used in the study of population; standard procedures for the measurement of fertility, mortality, natural increase, migration, and nuptiality; and uses of model life tables and stable population analysis and other techniques of estimation when faced with inaccurate or incomplete data are studied.
- SPI 565/SOC 565/POP 565: Social Determinants of HealthCourse examines how and why society can make us sick or healthy and how gender, race/ethnicity, wealth, education, occupation and other social statuses shape health outcomes. It looks at the role of social institutions, and environment-society interactions in shaping health outcomes and examines how these factors underlie some of the major causes of illness and death around the world including infant mortality, infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer. The course draws on historical and cross-cultural material from the U.S. as well as global examples from different countries around the world.
- SPI 566A/POP 566: Topics in Health: Global Health ChallengesThis seminar explores important factors facing the field of global health today, as well as policy actions to address these factors. It examines demographic changes and rapid urbanization, climate change and its implications for global health, the increased importance of non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries, the rise of social media and misinformation/disinformation, new health risk factors such as antimicrobial resistance, and the increased prominence of humanitarian emergencies due to conflicts, natural disasters, pandemics and other disease outbreaks.
- SPI 594C/POP 594C: Topics in Policy Analysis (Half-Term): Reproductive Justice and Public PolicyThis course uses the lens of reproductive justice to examine policy and politics around reproduction and family formation in the United States. The course explores the social, historical and cultural forces that shape reproduction, focusing on how inequalities based on gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, and citizenship structure and influence reproductive opportunities and experiences. Topics include contraception and abortion, childbirth and maternity care, adoption and family policy, reproductive technology, eugenics, the maternal mortality crisis, and the role of law, medicine and activism in shaping contemporary reproduction.
- SPI 598/POP 508: EpidemiologyThis course combines a traditional public health course in epidemiology with a policy-oriented course on population health. Conventional topics include measurement of health and survival and impact of associated risk factors; techniques for design, analysis of epidemiologic studies; sources of bias and confounding; and causal inference. We also examine: models of infectious disease with an emphasis on COVID-19, inference and decision making based on large numbers of studies and contradictory information, the science underlying screening procedures, social inequalities in health, and ethical issues in medical research.