HCP 10 Solving Problems in Healthcare (Introduction to Healthcare Policy)
How do we understand and solve important healthcare problems? That's what this course helps us answer. This course introduces students to basic concepts and ideas about how health and illness get distributed in society, how the health care system is organized in the US and around the world, and how these relate to each other. After an overview of the US health system, we explore various perspectives on analyzing health and health care, including: medical/clinical, epidemiological, economic, sociological/cultural, and population/public health. Throughout the course we use a specific issue in Health Policy Analysis - usually women's health, immigrant health, and/or healthcare for unhoused populations - to explore how healthcare providers and policymakers can respond to the social determinants of health that put populations at greater risk for these problems. Class readings, discussions, and assignments emphasize the value of understanding diverse disciplinary perspectives on health, the challenges of meeting varied health needs, the (often conflicting) motivations of various health care system stakeholders, and the unique ways the United States health care system has tried to answer these questions. GE 5B.
Distribution
HCP