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 The new Poverty and Health in Latin America course is one of 10 yearlong courses offered as part of UCLA's Freshman Cluster Program and is funded fully by the UCLA Blum Center. The Poverty and Health in Latin America cluster focuses on helping freshmen develop an understanding of how the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age influence their health and access to health care. This course examines health inequities both between and within Latin American countries and communities in a multi-disciplinary fashion. This multidisciplinary approach is based upon the social determinants of health including sex, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, poverty, religion, governance, politics, and foreign policies. During the academic year, students in this class will learn a conceptual framework of interrelationships between social determinants of health in Latin America and are introduced to the science of health, including epidemiology, environmental health, nutrition, data collection, and assessment methods. Introductory medical public health articles and articles from other fields expose students to current methods of conducting scientific research. The articles form the basis for discussions on basic scientific methodology, uncertainty and related implications of scientific work.
What are Freshman Clusters?
The College's Freshman Cluster Program is a curricular initiative that is designed to strengthen the intellectual skills of first year students, introduce them to faculty research work, and expose them to such "best practices" in teaching as seminars and interdisciplinary study. Clusters are year-long, collaboratively taught, interdisciplinary courses that are focused on a topic of timely importance such as the "global environment," or "interracial dynamics." These courses are taught by some of the university's most distinguished faculty and seasoned graduate students and are open only to entering freshmen. During the fall and winter quarters, students attend lecture courses and small discussion sections and/or labs. In the spring quarter, these same students enroll in one of a number of satellite seminars dealing with topics related to the cluster theme.
Eligibility:
Available to entering freshmen only, cluster courses are an option for satisfying general education requirements.
Syllabus topics
- Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Health in Latin America
- Geography, Demography, and Linguistics
- Historical Context: From Antiquity to the Modern Era: Sociological Context: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity
- Cultural Context and Political Science, Shifts to the Left
- What is Health and How Is It Measured?
- Behavioral and Biological Factors and Psychosocial Factors
- Material Circumstances: Living and Working Conditions, Food Availability, etc.
- Healthcare Systems
- Poverty/Socioeconomic Position: Education, Occupation, Income
- How Governance and Macroeconomic Ppolicies Influence Health
- How Social and Public Policies Affect Health
- How Migration Impacts Health in Latin America
- The Impact of Urbanization on Health in Latin America
Course time/dates Lecture: Wednesdays and Fridays 9:30-10:45am
Course venue
DeNeve Hall P350
Current Syllabus (Spring 2013):
Andrew Young 26A Seminar
Cathy Coddington 26A Seminar
Rebecca Dufendach 26A Seminar
Brent Langellier 26A Seminar
Upcoming Sessions:
Fall 2013
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