ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø’s Global Public and Environmental Health Program helps students to understand interdisciplinary perspectives on critical health issues and the skills needed to address them, both locally and on a global scale. Students in public health learn to think critically, speak, and write clearly and articulately about health issues from a variety of perspectives. The global public health curriculum combines interdisciplinary breadth with depth in a chosen field of study.
The Global Public and Environmental Health Program is an interdisciplinary program located within the Division of University Studies and staffed by faculty from the four academic divisions who apply their knowledge and expertise to teaching and research endeavors that cross disciplinary boundaries. The program administers a minor that includes a common introductory course to ensure a common interdisciplinary experience. Students achieve depth in analytical ability by taking a set of courses chosen in consultation with their adviser. To fulfill the global public and environmental health minor graduation requirements, students must possess a minimum overall GPA of at least 2.00 in all courses counted toward the minor, both the introductory course and those taken in other departments and programs.
Minor Requirements
The minor consists of six courses. Courses cannot be double counted within the minor. Only one of the five elective courses for the minor can be at the 100-level. See for course descriptions.
Required Course (New in Fall '21)
GPEH 100 - Introduction to Global Public and Environmental Health
The overall purpose of this course is to introduce students to critical global health issues and ways to address or solve them. The curriculum focuses on the following global health topics: infectious and chronic diseases, maternal/child health, immigrant and refugee health, the relationship between political and cultural processes and health, factors contributing to disparate health outcomes in population groups and how to measure those outcomes. The course is divided into two parts. The first emphasizes the distribution and determinants of disease causation in global contexts utilizing skills and methods in the discipline of global health. The second examines some of the most pressing contemporary global health concerns and contextualizes those concerns in cross-cultural and historical knowledge.
One course on Methodological Perspectives - choose from list
- ANTH 211 - Investigating Contemporary Culture
- BIOL 310 - Epidemiology
- BIOL 316 - Bioinformatics
- BIOL 320 - Biostatistics
- CORE 143S - Introduction to Statistics
- ENST 250 - Environmental Policy Analysis
- GEOG 245 - Geographic Information Systems
- GEOG 250 - Research Methods
- PSYC 309 - Quantitative Methods in Behavioral Research
- SOCI 250 - Sociological Research Design and Methods
One course from at least three of the four disciplinary groups (Scientific, Environmental, Social, Humanities)
Scientific Perspectives
- BIOL 101 - Global Climate Change and You
- BIOL 301 - Parasitology and
- BIOL 313 - Microbiology and BIOL 313L
- BIOL 318 - Vertebrate Physiology and BIOL 318L
- BIOL 330 - Conservation Biology
- BIOL 336 - Advanced Ecology
- BIOL 337 - Cancer Biology
- BIOL 359 - Ecosystem Ecology and BIOL 359L
- BIOL 373 - Virology and BIOL 373L
- BIOL 374 - Immunology
- CORE 128S - Global Change and You
- CORE 172S - The Biology of Women: Sex, Gender, Reproduction, and Disease
- CORE 177S - Critical Analysis of Health Issues
Environmental Perspectives
- BIOL 330 - Conservation Biology
- BIOL 336 - Advanced Ecology
- BIOL 359 - Ecosystem Ecology and BIOL 359L
- CORE 128S - Global Change and You
- ENST 233 - Global Environmental Health Issues
- ENST 390 - Community-based Study of Environmental Issues
- GEOG 316 - Environmental and Public Health Geographies
- GEOG 319 - Population and Environment
- GEOG 321 - Gender, Justice, and Environmental Change
- GEOL 101 - Environmental Geology
- GEOL 102 - Sustainable Earth
Social Perspectives
- ALST 351 - Medicine, Health and Healing in Africa
- ANTH 102 - Culture, Diversity and Inequality
- ANTH 222 - Medical Anthropology
- ANTH 226 Critical Global Health
- ANTH 244 - Who Owns Culture?
- ANTH/SOCI 245 - Nature, Culture, Politics
- ANTH 334 - Public Health in Africa
- ECON 348 - Health Economics
- POSC 361 - Humanitarian Interventions
- PSYC 363 - Developmental Psychopathology
- PSYC 365 - Cross-Cultural Human Development
- RELG 252 - Religion, Plagues, Pandemics
- SOCI 212 Power, Racism and Privilege
- SOCI 310 - Sociology of the Body
- SOCI 312 - Social Inequality
- SOC 325 Mental Illness
Humanities Perspectives
- ARTS 260 - Social Practice Art
- HIST 210 - The History of Health, Disease and Empire (TR)
- LGBT 340 - Rural Sexualities and Genders
- PHIL 214 - Medical Ethics
- RELG 265 - Global Bioethics and Religion
Potential Minors
If you want to Minor in GPEH, please:
- Review the GPEH minor requirements and determine how your current and previous course work fits with those requirements
- Identify and contact a potential advisor from the Steering Committee
- Meet with your potential GPEH advisor and review the course requirements and fill out the minor declaration form
Forms: Course Petition, Minor Declaration
Affiliated Faculty
Professors: Cardelús, Frey, Holm, Ingram, Schwarzer, Shiner, Upton
Associate Professors: Taye (Director)
Assistant Professors: Abdul-Malak
Steering Committee: Abdul-Malak, Cardelús, Chanatry, Holm, Frey, Ingram, Schwarzer, Shiner, Taye, Upton
Contact: GPEH@colgate.edu