Community Health and Medicine Undergraduate Certificate
Introduction
Please click here to see Sociology department information.
Enhancing the health and quality of life for individuals and communities are central goals to societies the world over. Medical sociology is a subfield devoted to the study of population health, health care systems and policy, and the social dimensions of illness and healing. Medical sociologists study the causes of health inequalities, social constructions of health and illness, origins of medical authority, doctor-patient relationships, community influences on health, and the social forces that affect policy. The Sociology Department's Community Health and Medicine Certificate provides training in the core research methodologies and theories of medical sociology, examining individual experience, institutional structures, laws and policies that affect health, and broader systems of inequality that lead to unequal rates of illness and access to care. This certificate provides depth of training in these areas and is ideal for students interested in graduate-level study and social research on health and medicine as well as those interested in careers in public health, health care services, and non-profit organizations.
Upon successful completion of the certificate, students will:
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Articulate the central explanations for historical shifts in disease, including neighborhood effects and behaviors that may increase the risk of disease and mortality
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Identify social factors that contribute to population health inequalities, including race, ethnicity, gender, class, immigration status, sexuality, or disability
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Understand the social influences that shape medical authority, knowledge, and patient experiences with illness and treatment
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Be able to use different methodologies to understand the social aspects of health and medicine
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Know how to conduct original research, analyze policy, and evaluate community needs for organizations devoted to improving population health
Program Delivery
- This is an on-campus or online program.
Declaring This Certificate
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Eligibility: While housed in Sociology, the study of health and medical issues is in fact a multidisciplinary field that draws from diverse liberal arts fields, including Anthropology, Communications, Psychology, and History, among others. Thus, CU Denver undergraduate students in any discipline can enroll in the certificate program. This certificate is also available to non-degree-seeking students who already have earned a BA or BS degree, either at CU Denver or elsewhere.
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Application procedures: Student are encouraged to contact the Director of the Community Health and Medicine Certificate at any point in their undergraduate studies to inform them of their plan to pursue this certificate. Providing their student identification number and an unofficial transcript will assist the Director in advising them. The certificate is awarded to the student upon successful completion of required coursework and an assessment exam.
These program requirements are subject to periodic revision by the academic department, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences reserves the right to make exceptions and substitutions as judged necessary in individual cases. Therefore, the College strongly urges students to consult regularly with their Community Health and Medicine advisor to confirm the best plans of study before finalizing them.
General Requirements
Students must satisfy all requirements as outlined below and by the department offering the certificate.
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Click here for information about Academic Policies.
Certificate Requirements
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Students must complete a minimum of 15 credit hours from the approved courses below.
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Students must complete a minimum of six upper-division (3000-level and above) SOCY credit hours.
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Students must earn a minimum grade of C- (1.7) in all courses that apply to the certificate and must achieve a minimum cumulative certificate GPA of 2.0. Courses taken using P+/P/F or S/U grading cannot apply to certificate requirements.
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Students must complete all credits applied to the certificate at CU Denver. (If students have completed a course required for the certificate elsewhere, they may add the needed credits in the form of additional elective credits drawn from the approved elective courses.)
Certificate Restrictions, Allowances and Recommendations
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The certificate will be awarded at the end of the semester in which the student completes all required courses for the certificate.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Complete the following required courses: 1 | ||
| SOCY 3115 & SOCY 3119 | Quantitative Methods & Analysis and Qualitative Methods 1 | 8 |
| SOCY 3440 | Medical Sociology | 3 |
| Complete two of the following elective courses: | 6 | |
| Sociology of Human Sexuality | ||
| Drugs, Alcohol & Society | ||
| Health Disparities | ||
| Sociology of Health Care | ||
| Population Change and Analysis | ||
| Social Meanings of Reproduction | ||
| Cannabis Culture | ||
| Anthropology of Health Care Policy | ||
| Medical Anthropology: Global Health | ||
| Global Health Practice | ||
| Anthropology and Public Health | ||
| Immigrant Health | ||
| Medical Anthropology | ||
| Introduction to Health Communication | ||
| Health Communication | ||
| Health Communication and Community | ||
| Rhetorics of Medicine & Health | ||
| Digital Health Narratives | ||
| Health Risk Communication | ||
| Health Economics. | ||
| Illness & Disability Narrative | ||
| Ethnicity, Health and Social Justice | ||
| Geography of Health | ||
| GIS Applications in the Health Sciences | ||
| Disasters, Climate Change, and Health | ||
| Foundations of Health Humanities | ||
| Science, Technology, and Society in the Modern World | ||
| Gender, Science, and Medicine: 1600 to the Present | ||
| Mind and Malady: A History of Mental Illness | ||
| Race, Gender, Class, & Health | ||
| Human Sexuality and Public Health | ||
| Health Policy | ||
| Health, Culture and Society | ||
| Mental Illness and Society | ||
| Perspectives in Global Health | ||
| Health in the City: Urban Health | ||
| Live Long and Prosper: Public Health & Aging | ||
| Global Health: Comparative Public Health Systems | ||
| Social Determinants of Health | ||
| Psychedelic Anthropology | ||
| Philosophy of Death and Dying | ||
| Medicine, Health Care, and Justice: Bioethics | ||
| U.S. Health Policy | ||
| Lifespan Developmental Psychology for Health Majors | ||
| Health Psychology | ||
| Drugs, Brain and Behavior | ||
| Abnormal Psychology | ||
| Aging, Brain and Behavior | ||
| Total Hours | 17 | |
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Students may take two approved methods courses in their major discipline, one on quantitative methods and one on qualitative methods. Alternative courses may reduce the required course credit hours from 11 to 9.
- Examples of SOCY 3115, substitutions may include ECON 3801 Introduction to Mathematical Economics, ECON 3811 Statistics with Computer Applications, GEOG 2080 Introduction to Mapping and Map Analysis, GEOG 4080 Introduction to GIS, MATH 2830 Introductory Statistics, PHIL 2441 Logic, Language and Scientific Reasoning, PHIL 3440 Introduction to Symbolic Logic, PSCI 3011 Research Methods, PSYC 2090 Statistics and Research Methods, PSYC 3090 Research Methods in Psychology.
- Examples of SOCY 3119 substitutions may include COMM 4221 Research Methods: Qualitative, PBHL 4031 Ethnographic Research in Public Health.
To learn more about the Student Learning Outcomes for this program, please visit our website.