Emerging Diseases and Public Policy.

URBST

738

Emerging Diseases and Public Policy.

This course deals with the problem of "Emerging Diseases" and the policy implications that they entail. Emerging diseases are broadly defined to include (1) new diseases that have not been seen before (e.g., HIV, SARS, Lyme); (2) diseases that are spreading into geographic areas from which they have been absent (e.g., Dengue Fever and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever), and (3) older diseases that were in significant decline but have now reversed direction (e.g. tuberculosis itself, and also in its antibiotic resistant form) and pose a major threat to the public's health. The course emphasizes the social causation of infectious disease (i.e., the political, economic, social and cultural practices that inadvertently favor the emergence of disease) and the social construction of disease (i.e., how diseases and their victims are perceived, and how that helps or hinders measured aimed at controlling them). The course entails reading both theoretical and descriptive material and emphasizes learning a body of factual material.

Fall, Spring

Graduate

Yes