415.640.92
Health Judgment and Decision Making
Location
NIH - Bethesda, MD
Term
3rd Term
Department
Health, Behavior and Society
Credit(s)
2
Academic Year
2023 - 2024
Instruction Method
In-person
Friday, 9:00 - 10:50am
Auditors Allowed
No
Available to Undergraduate
No
Grading Restriction
Letter Grade or Pass/Fail
Course Instructor(s)
Course Instructor(s)
William Klein
Contact Name
William Klein
Contact Email
Frequency Schedule
Every Year
Resources
Provides a foundation in cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes underlying judgment and decision making in a variety of health contexts. Focuses on antecedents and consequences of adaptive and maladaptive health judgments and decisions, with particular attention to risk perception and communication, application of decisional heuristics, and personal beliefs underlying health decisions. Considers how people make decisions, how they respond to health information, and how they mentally represent illness, as well as how health teams make decisions. Prepares students to apply basic research on health judgment and decision-making to effective genetic counseling and other applied settings.
Learning Objectives
Upon successfully completing this course, students will be able to:
- Identify key assumptions of normative and descriptive decision-making
- Explain how human emotions and motives influence health judgments and decisions
- Develop risk communication modalities that build on extant research on risk perception and risk communication
- Apply the principles taught in the course to a specific research or clinical domain
Methods of Assessment
This course is evaluated as follows:
- 50% Participation
- 50% Final Paper
Enrollment Restriction
No undergraduates
Jointly Offered With