Welcome to "Bats, Ducks, and Pandemics: An Introduction to One Health Policy". One Health is the concept that human, animal, and environmental/ecosystem health are linked. The concept provides a useful framework for examining complex health issues such as food safety and security, emerging and vector-borne diseases, and antimicrobial resistance. It can be used to analyze government policies to determine if they are effective in improving health and well-being. Agriculture is the foundation of civilization. Surplus food enabled the growth of cities; cities led to nations, and nations discovered the science and technology that allowed populations to grow. But agriculture comes with costs including environmental and ecosystem destruction and the emergence of zoonotic diseases. Antibiotics are the foundation of modern medicine. But antibiotics have come with costs too, including antimicrobial resistance and potentially harmful changes to human and animal microbiomes. This interdisciplinary course will cover diverse subjects such as basic epidemiology, public health, public policy, basic microbiology, food safety, and security, zoonotic diseases, sanitation and hygiene, antimicrobial resistance, environmental and ecosystem health, and the national and international organizations that oversee health, agriculture, and the environment. Disease outbreaks including Influenza, Q fever, and Ebola will be discussed. While the course was developed and recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic, the concepts learned very much apply to it. This course emphasizes holistic, not siloed, approaches to health, and disease.

This specialization is intended for people interested in health systems and how they function. Participants will learn about the global health systems landscape and the challenges and opportunities to achieve better health outcomes. This specialisation is divided into three courses which are offered as massive online open access courses (Courses 1-3), and a fourth course which is offered as part of the Online MPH degree (capstone). The Health Systems Development specialisation is geared toward learners who have no prior knowledge of health systems or those who are starting to explore this area of study. Overall, sessions in this specialisation span 16 week with approximately 96 hours of viewing learning materials per week. Formative assessments in the form of quizzes and activities are incorporated throughout the weeks to help learners gauge their level of depth of understanding and to prepare them for their summative assessments. Participants will have the opportunity to explore a range of areas within health systems. The first course will introduce the main building blocks of health systems and shed some light on key components of well-functioning health systems including how health system performance is assessed. In course two, students will learn how to conduct a health impact assessment and how to assess the impacts of policies, plans and projects, as well as how that support decision-makers make choices regarding alternatives and improvements to prevent disease or injury and to actively promote health. The third course explores human resources for health and service delivery. In this course, students will learn about and analyse country experiences in transforming health services delivery, and interventions and to address human resources for health challenges at a global level. By the end of this specialisation, learners should be able to identify key components of, and critically compare, different health systems; analyse country experiences in transforming services; and apply theoretical framework for assessing the health impacts of policies, plans and projects.

As the United States grapples with both the short-term and long-term impacts and considers how different groups and individuals are affected, it can easily become overwhelming to keep up with conversations about health and immigration. Most people can generally agree that health and immigration policy affect ALL communities, families, and individuals in one way or another. This Teach-Out is designed to help you have a more well-informed discussion about health and immigration. As part of this Teach-Out, you will hear the first-hand perspectives of researchers, elected officials, healthcare systems, business leaders, and community members. You will get a sneak peek into safe spaces within the immigrant community. Along the way, you will also get to test yourself and your knowledge about immigration and health, and do a fact-check with helpful resources and information. Last but not least, you will share in the spirit of a Teach-Out: bringing people together to learn about and address a current and important topic in society. At the end of each lesson, you will be asked to practice how to talk about it by sharing your thoughts and reflections on the different topics that were discussed.

In order to make a difference in the health and well-being of a population, we must understand the burden of all problems and conditions that affect the population, as well as how well our efforts to mitigate these problems are actually working. This course provides you with some essential skills and tools that will enhance your ability to describe and understand the health of your community. The tools that epidemiologists use are in fact useful for all public health practitioners, including data scientists, program officials, agency leaders, and policymakers. Whether you are deeply enmeshed in your career and looking to augment your skills, or are looking to change career paths into the field of public health, this course will give you some of the practical knowledge and skills that we hope you can apply in your professional endeavors.

This course has four modules, or foci. The first is to understand the categories of social welfare—populations, income, earnings, and assets— and some related concepts that play a very large role in shaping policy decisions: unemployment, inflation, and the minimum wage. The second deals with the central institution of social welfare—the labor market, which largely determines how many resources a person has. The labor market also establishes hierarchy, both through meritocracy and through categories of privilege. The third is poverty: the differing ways we define who is poor, and how effective U.S. anti-poverty efforts have been. The final module looks directly at federal decision making, the political organization of ideas, the structure of U.S. government, and the legislative process that shapes much of our social policy. 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.

You may be encountering a world unlike any other generation. The public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic has created a context of pervasive uncertainty, heightened anxiety, and social isolation that overlaps with a critical time of your own learning and development. The COVID-19 pandemic also has exacerbated long-standing inequalities and disparities, and recent events in the United States have laid bare historical and current realities of racism and systemic oppression. These challenges make starting college complicated in unprecedented ways, compounded by the fact that our university settings are themselves complex and rapidly changing. These challenges also present unique opportunities for interdisciplinary and practical learning. This course aims to help you navigate this world and the new conditions for learning with knowledge and skill. We designed the course with participatory methods, which means that we asked students to take a key role as partners with faculty in designing the course content, structure, and learning experiences. Together, we sought to integrate faculty expertise with the perspectives and experiences of students to make the course material relevant to your life. In this class, we will explore perspectives on disease and society and on systemic racism and inequality with scholars in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities, education, communications and media, and engineering. Engaging these disciplines to examine the complex problems of the global pandemic and systemic racism will help you build conceptual and practical skills that you will use throughout college and beyond. In conjunction with investigating health and social crises, new and ongoing, we also will explore the science and practice of individual and community wellness. You will learn skills relevant to emotions, relationships, common mental health concerns, and learning in the age of Zoom and remote classes. You will learn practices of cooperation, compassion, and anti-racism for community wellness. Welcome to Health, Society, and Wellness in COVID-19 Times!

The University of Geneva, Institute Pasteur, University of Montreal and Centre Virchow-Villermé/University Paris Descartes welcome you to this MOOC on "Global Health at the Human-Animal-Ecosystem Interface"! Over the next 8 weeks, you will explore and learn about some of the major and current Global Health Challenges at the Human-Animal-Ecosystem Interface: zoonotic emerging infections (e.g. Ebola, Nipah, MERS, Avian Influenza), antimicrobial resistance, neglected tropical diseases (e.g. rabies, leishmaniasis, zoonotic TB), snakebite and other human-animal conflicts etc. You will learn new concepts from the field of epidemiology, social anthropology, disease ecology, veterinary sciences, global health policy etc. and approaches such as One Health, Eco-Health and Planetary Health. Also, you will learn about innovative tools and frameworks used to study and tackle some of these Global Health challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals era. This MOOC proposes you a dynamic, international and interdisciplinary programme based on the One Health approach (human-animal-environmental dimensions) and involving more than 30 top experts from more than 20 academic and research institutions and international organisations based in Geneva, Paris, Montreal and the world. Policy makers from the World Health Organisation, clinicians from the University Hospitals of Geneva, epidemiologists from Institut Pasteur etc. will share with you their knowledge and experiences all along this MOOC. Video-lectures have been filmed in different parts of the world and settings (from the field to the lab and office) and will be combined with the latest open readings and interactive activities in the discussion forum, video-conferences etc. This MOOC keeps evolving and enriching actively over time and two new sections on "Health Benefits at the Human-Animal-Ecosystem Interface" and "Management of Ecosystems under Global Changes: Implication for Human Health" have been added in May 2018. This latter section was developed in close collaboration with experts from World Health Organisation and the Convention on Biological Diversity and is introduced by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. The development of this MOOC was led by Dr. Rafael Ruiz de Castañeda, Dr. Isabelle Bolon and Prof. Antoine Flahault from the Institute of Global Health of the University of Geneva. The list of instructors is completed by Prof. Arnaud Fontanet (Institut Pasteur) and Prof. André Ravel (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Montreal). Watch our teaser here and let’s get started! https://youtu.be/WT7-cC21uLU?list=PLnZ (with subtitles in French and in Chinese)

The best available evidence shows that comprehensive background checks by themselves are insufficient at reducing gun violence, but strong bodies of research demonstrate that states with comprehensive background checks coupled with firearm purchaser licensing, or permit-to-purchase laws, have significantly fewer firearm-involved homicides, fatal mass shootings, and suicides. Additionally, public opinion polling research consistently finds that 75% or more of U.S. adults support firearm purchaser licensing laws and 60% or more of gun owners support these policies. This Teach-Out event includes a general overview of firearm licensing policies and evidence of their effectiveness, as well as materials on the social context of licensing, including public opinion polling and differences across geographic areas and groups. Over the next four weeks, you are invited to join us as we explore this topic together through brief lessons, weekly discussions, and call-to-action activities for you to undertake in your own community. We would also like to acknowledge our funders, the Johns Hopkins Center for Teaching and Learning and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Without their generous contributions, this Teach-Out would not be possible and we are so very grateful for their support.

Through ages, doctors and scientists have worked hard to fight against different diseases, but it is not easy to find the effective way to deal with them. However, it is a lot faster and easier to approach new problems nowadays with the help of past experience and modern technology. In this course, we are going to show you some common diseases and its current management. At the same time, we will also show you how modern medicine has developed and what breakthroughs are specially made in Taiwan.

This History of Medical Cannabis course is designed to have you think critically about past, present, and future research on the health effects of cannabis by developing a more nuanced understanding of the barriers to research as well as different approaches to research. You will learn about the history of cannabis cultivation, the legal history of cannabis or "marijuana", and the obstacles that led to the lack of science on its medicinal use. You will also learn how to critically evaluate research on the effects of cannabis and discuss the associated risks of using cannabis in the context of public health and epidemiological research. Finally, you will learn about how to administer cannabis products in ways that minimize risk and maximize any potential benefits. Obtaining this knowledge will be helpful in terms of informing public policy, public health, and personal decisions regarding the use of cannabis products.