Professor: Ellen Fitzpatrick

4 credits

As our world is becoming increasingly interconnected, challenges arise that directly connect human, animal, and environmental health. This course introduces students to the foundations of epidemiology, an interdisciplinary study of the distribution and determination of disease that draws on the natural and social sciences including biology, ecology, economics, geography, management, and statistics. Students will apply the One Health conceptual framework that explicitly connects environmental change to disease in both animals and humans.  This framework will guide a systems approach to tackle global public health’s most difficult problems such as epidemics of zoonotic diseases and international food safety.  The course will introduce students to emerging infectious disease, diseases surveillance, biodefense, and the analytical approaches pertaining to infectious disease prevention and control.

Graduation Requirement: This class will fulfill a Social Science Colloquium and the Global Perspectives (GP) cultural literacy requirement.  If the student has already taken a Social Science Colloquium, this class will fulfill both of the following requirements:  an Elective Colloquium and Global Perspective cultural literacy.