224.689.01
Health Behavior Change at the Individual, Household and Community Levels
Location
East Baltimore
Term
2nd Term
Department
International Health
Credit(s)
4
Academic Year
2024 - 2025
Instruction Method
In-person
Tu, Th, 8:30 - 10:20am
Auditors Allowed
Yes, with instructor consent
Available to Undergraduate
Yes
Grading Restriction
Letter Grade or Pass/Fail
Course Instructor(s)
Contact Name
Frequency Schedule
Every Year
Resources
Prerequisite
Provides students with conceptual tools to analyze health-related behaviors and the social, cultural and environmental context in which they occur. Applies concepts and theories from medical anthropology, psychology and sociology to programmatic examples from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and North America concerning care-seeking, treatment of sick children, insecticide-treated mosquito nets, voluntary counseling and testing, sexual risk behaviors, water sanitation and hygiene, environmental behaviors, and other behavior change challenges in public health.
Learning Objectives
Upon successfully completing this course, students will be able to:
- Describe conceptual tools drawn from medical anthropology pertinent to the design of behavior change interventions including standards of efficacy, illness taxonomies, illness etiology, levels of causality, meanings of medication, public and private domains, social risk and gender roles
- Identify and map the key components of common models of health behavior change at the individual level, and difficulties encountered when trying to apply them in different cultural contexts
- Describe psychological and anthropological perspectives on risk perceptions, diffusion of innovations and influence of the mass media
- Recognize basic terminology for describing households, kinship systems, communities and social capital and identify their significance for public health interventions
- Recognize the basic components of various intervention modalities, including Social Marketing, Counseling, Harm Reduction, Diffusion of Innovation, and Community Mobilization
- Integrate the major theories covered in class with the various interventions modalities presented
- Apply appropriate combinations of theoretically based intervention modalities to scenarios
- Apply these conceptual tools, concepts and perspectives described above to the understanding of cultural, individual, environmental and structural factors that impact the design and implementation of public health programs
- Explain behavioral and psychological factors that affect a population's health
Methods of Assessment
This course is evaluated as follows:
- 10% Participation
- 20% Assignments
- 5% Quizzes
- 40% Final Paper
- 25% Final Exam
Enrollment Restriction
No enrollment restrictions