In all nations, social policy is a very large public investment. Course 1 will explore the size, structure, and outcomes of U.S. social policy and compare this policy to those of similar developed countries. The course will also probe the values this policy represents and the values debate regarding about how big our welfare state should be— in other words, how much of our education, housing, health, income support, and social services the government should supply and how much individuals should supply for themselves. This course addresses issues of power, oppression, and white supremacy. The course is part of a sequence in social policy that has an HONORS TRACK. This track will prepare the learner for masters-level work in policy, which involves reading the literature, writing concise summaries and probing critiques. Over the sequence the learner will develop a policy analysis that will create a foundation for professional policy analyst assignments.

Telehealth uses technology tools such as a cellphone or laptop to give patients and doctors the ability to support healthcare communication and services remotely. The field of telehealth has seen tremendous growth, with telehealth use increasing across all specialties and becoming even more accessible. This course is designed for healthcare professionals and employees in organizations that practice telehealth or are aspiring to work within the field. As a leading pioneer in the field of telehealth, UC Davis Health began offering telehealth services in 1992 and providing a formal telehealth academic curriculum in 1999. Go beyond the foundational knowledge of technology tools employed and telehealth applications. Learn about the most effective practices in implementation, regulatory compliance, and how to practice with a health equity lens. With insight from the CEO of UC Davis Health, David Lubarsky, you will leave the course better able to improve your telehealth practice and focus on the elements of telehealth that matter most to your organization and to the patients you serve.

The second course of the Impacts of the Environment on Global Public Health specialization will explore a number of different environmental hazards. These are: air pollution, water pollution, solid and hazardous waste, and two physical hazards (radon and noise). These hazards each have the potential to harm human health, and we will explore how you may come into contact with these hazards and how they may harm you, as well as what we can do to minimize these exposures and health impacts. We will also explore two additional key topics: urban and global health, and the influence of the built environment on human health.

Synbio is a diverse field with diverse applications, and the different contexts (e.g., gain-of-function research, biofuels) raise different ethical and governance challenges. The objective of this course is to increase learners’ awareness and understanding of ethical and policy/governance issues that arise in the design, conduct and application of synthetic biology. The course will begin with a short history of recombinant DNA technology and how governance of that science developed and evolved, and progress through a series of areas of application of synbio. Content will be presented in many forms, including not only reading and lectures, but also recorded and live interviews and discussions with scientists, ethicists and policy makers. Learners will have the opportunity to think, write and talk about the issues and challenges in their own work and in real-life case examples. A final project will engage students in the development of governance models for synbio.

Learn about the role of environment in disease transmission and how to implement standard and transmission-based precautions to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria and other infections in your facility.

The goal of this 4-week course is to equip learners to safely care for a patient infected with a pathogen requiring high-level biocontainment. This can be accomplished in any healthcare facility given the correct approach and protocols. Please copy and paste the following link into a new tab/browser to view the video overview of our course. http://bit.ly/2bPZ6Cz In this course, we will: 1. Discuss the essentials of intake screening. 2. Investigate pathogen transmission characteristics and the chain of infection. 3. Examine patient placement in a facility, as well as the engineering/ administrative controls. 4. Review personal protective equipment worn by the care providers. 5. Evaluate waste management and decontamination protocols. We look forward to exploring and learning with you! Dr. Medcalf and University of Nebraska Medical Center Team This project was funded by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health

This course provides an introduction to evaluating public health programs at scale. This course focuses on evaluating public health programs and policies in low- and middle-income countries, however, core skills of designing and carrying out an evaluation are applicable to any public health programs and policies. The course will equip you with skills to: 1. Critique an evaluation of an international health program, identifying its strengths and possible weaknesses and how they could be addressed. 2. Develop a technically-sound evaluation plan for a reproductive, maternal, newborn, child health (RMNCAH) and nutrition program being implemented at scale in a low- or middle-income country, including evaluation design, key indicators, measurement methods, analysis, and communication of results. 3. Guide program managers and donors through a process of agreeing on priority evaluation activities included in an evaluation plan for a specific RMNCAH and nutrition program. 4. Make informed decisions about whether they want to pursue further learning and/or a professional role as an evaluator of large-scale programs. The development of this course was supported by a grant from Government Affairs Canada (GAC) for the Real Accountability, Data Analysis for Results (RADAR) project.

Health behavior lies at the core of any successful public health intervention. While we will examine the behavior of individual in depth in this course, we also recognize by way of the Ecological Model that individual behavior is encouraged or constrained by the behavior of families, social groups, communities, organizations and policy makers. We recognize that behavior change is not a simplistic process but requires an understanding of dimensions like frequency, complexity and cultural congruity. Such behavioral analysis is strengthened through the use of a toolkit of theoretical models and practical frameworks. While many of such models and frameworks exist, in this course we will review the Health Belief Model, Social Learning Theory, Theory of Reasoned Action, the Trans-Theoretical Model and the PRECEDE Framework. After building your behavioral analysis toolkit with these examples, you will see that actual behavior change program planning uses a combination of ideas and variables from different models, theories and frameworks. Ultimately we aim to encourage course participants to apply the idea that successful programs are theory based as they go about involving people in improving their health.

COURSE 5 of 7. This course is designed to introduce you to the changes an organization will need to make to succeed in value-based care and payment. In previous courses in this specialization, you were introduced to the Accountable Care Learning Collaborative (ACLC). One of the models you will explore is the ACLC’s Accountable Care Atlas model. This model, along with additional information from the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (HCP-LAN), will help you begin to understand the challenges and rewards of transitioning to value-based care. In Module 2, you will explore those concepts through the lenses of three types of healthcare organizations, tying those examples back to types of value-based contracts. You will also explore strategies to address some of the challenges in the journey to value-based care. In the summative assignment, you will demonstrate your knowledge by envisioning that you have been invited to speak as part of a roundtable discussion on the challenges of transitioning to value-based care and payment. You will develop an outline of talking points in which you will share why VBC is valuable, the challenges and strategies that might address them, and where you see opportunities for progress in the transition to value-based care.

Do a lot of people in your neighborhood all seem to have the same sickness? Are people concerned about high rates of cancer? Your community may want to explore the possibility of a disease cluster, which happens when there is a higher number of cases of disease than expected. When communities hear about cases of disease in their neighborhood, they are rightfully concerned. However, the results of investigations by the health department often find no evidence of a cluster. This course will help you understand what a disease cluster is and how it is studied. The goal is to empower community (or citizen) scientists, and to help build better relationships between communities and health officials.