Pathways to Public Health provides learners with a working knowledge of the issues public health professionals are striving to address every day. You will meet public health specialists who focus on dimensions of health relating to: the environment, family and community, personal behaviors and decision making, health services delivery and access, and utilizing data to both identify the underlying causes of disease, and to track and control the spread of disease.
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Pathways to Public Health introduces you to a wide array of topics that are fundamental to public health and its place within the broader health sector. These topics are an essential starting point for the study of public health, including as preparation for the Maternal and Child Health MicroMasters. This course examines important and impactful public health topics, approaches, and methodologies, including but not limited to: the genetic and biological basis for disease, environmental factors, social determinants of health, individual levels of behavior change, globalization, research methods, and many more.
This course provides a valuable introduction to core public health concepts, theories, and language that will inform your understanding of persistent and emerging health issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, health disparities, and the impact of climate change on human health.
This course is part of the Maternal and Child Health MicroMasters program.
What you'll learn
- Describe the essential functions and services of public health in both the domestic United States and international settings.
- Discuss issues public health attempts to address relating to: health disparities, health services delivery and access, epidemiology, global health, changing health behaviors, prevention, influencing policy, and the importance of evidence in decision making.
- Describe the various professional roles public health professionals play, and their intersections with outside professions.
- Identify underlying influencers of individual and community health, including the social, environmental, commercial, and biological determinants of health.
