Course Work
Courses
- MED 247 Methods in community assessment, evaluation, and research (3 units) Students will learn pragmatic skills necessary for the design, implementation, and analysis of structured interviews, focus groups, survey questionnaires, and field observations. Based on in-class exercises, students will identify strengths and limitations of different study designs; construct interview and focus group questions; moderate focus groups; content analyze qualitative data using qualitative software; design questionnaire surveys,and correctly interpret commonly used statistical analyses. Open to medical students, graduate students, and undergraduates.
- PEDS 250 Social and environmental determinants of health (3 units)
How race/ethnicity and SES contribute to health disparities, how vulnerable populations are uniquely at health risk, and how the built environment relates to health and wellness. Topics include: gender, age, race/ethnicity, language, education, individual SES and neighborhood SES as related to health; individual and structural race bias; health needs of vulnerable populations (e.g., the homeless, the incarcerated, immigrant populations, children, and uninsured/underinsured); and environmental forces (e.g., urban design/planning, traffic/car culture, green space, housing, food access/culture, law enforcement, and media).
-
HRP 259 Introduction to probability and statistics for epidemiology (3 units)
This course aims to provide epidemiologists and clinical researchers with a firm grounding in the foundations of probability and statistical theory. The course emphasizes conceptual understanding rather than a “black box” approach, and will equip students with the tools needed to understand advanced statistical methods. Specific topics to include: random variables, expectation, variance, probability distributions, the Central Limit Theorem, sampling theory, hypothesis testing, confidence intervals; correlation, regression, analysis of variance, and nonparametric tests; and introduction to least squares and maximum likelihood estimation. Emphasis is on medical applications.
Descriptions
Free Clinics
MED 241 Context and Practice of Health Care in Free Clinics (1 unit)Preparation for working in free clinics, awareness of health care context and health disparities among underinsured patients, and introduction to key skills for patient care. Topics include: patient history, screening tests, health insurance, cultural sensitivity, role of interpreters, and tuberculosis testing. Meets at either Arbor or Pacific free clinic to increase familiarity with free clinic operations and environment. Integrates with concurrent Practice of Medicine course.
MED 229A Partnering with Free Clinics to Reach the Underinsured (2 units) - Partner with one of the Cardinal Free Clinics to develop and conduct individual projects addressing high priority programmatic needs identified by clinic. Projects based on community-based participatory research principles, including qualitative methods. By quarter end, completion of project proposal with literature review and methods, including strategies for data collection and analysis. Ideal for Arbor/Pacific Free Clinic managers/steering committee members who are in the Scholarly Concentration in Community Health.
MED 229B Partnering with Free Clinics to Reach the Underinsured (2 units) - Continuation of MED 229A. Data collection and analysis of individual projects. Following analysis, completion of a summary report/product that best meets needs of free clinic. Dissemination of findings to relevant community groups/coalitions per request of free clinic. Preparation of oral presentation to academic colleagues and faculty leaders. Completion of one of the following: an individual scholarly paper, national conference presentation of project findings, or journal manuscript submission. Submission of conference abstracts or manuscripts requires prior IRB approval.
Community-Based Clinics
INDE XXXA Partnering with Community-Based Clinics to Reach the Homeless(3 units) - Ways of engaging with community-based non-profit health clinics to address health needs of high-risk populations. Partner with the Opportunity Health Center (OHC), a non-profit clinic delivering services to homeless, to develop and conduct individual projects that address both the complex health needs of the homeless and high priority programmatic needs identified by OHC. By quarter end, completion of project proposal with thorough literature review and methods, including strategies for data collection and analysis.
INDE XXXB Partnering with Community-Based Clinics to Reach the Homeless (2 units) - Continuation of INDE XXXA. Data collection and analysis of individual projects. Following analysis, completion of a summary report/product that best meets needs of OHC. Dissemination of findings to relevant community groups/coalitions per request of OHC. Preparation of oral presentation to academic colleagues and faculty leaders. Completion of one of the following: an individual scholarly paper, national conference presentation of project findings, or journal manuscript submission. Submission of conference abstracts or manuscripts requires prior IRB approval.
Research
PEDS 253 Applied Skill-Building in Clinical and Community-Based Research (2 units) - Skill-building via detailed individualized feedback from instructor on all aspects of research projects. Topics include: grant proposal preparation; study design; field implementation; data entry, analysis and interpretation; and conference abstract/manuscript preparation. Open to medical students, graduate students, and undergraduates.
MED 370 Medical Scholars Research (18 units) - Collaboration with a faculty advisor actively engaged in a community-health related research project. Identification of an independent research question informed either by the faculty advisor’s broader project or by a community-campus partnership project supported by the partnership faculty advisor. Research question(s) for medical scholars projects differ from campus-community assessment projects. Research question(s) not only must meet a community need or address an important health disparity but also must potentially contribute new knowledge to scientific literature.
