Public Health (BA)

Majors will complete a core consisting of twelve courses plus three track-specific courses and a capstone requirement spread out across their four years.

The suggested sequence for core courses is:

First Year

PH 101	Introduction to Public Health	4
BIOL 113	General Biology	4
SOCI 241	Health, Illness & Society	4
CHEM 109	Chemistry and Society: General, Organic, and Biochemistry for Public Health	4

Sophomore Year

BIOL 104	Introduction to Environmental Science	4

MATH 118	Introductory Statistics	4
	OR
MATH 227	Intermediate Statistics: Design & Analysis	4

BIOL 221	Microbiology	4
SOCI 245	Global Health	4

Junior Year

SOCI 345	Health Systems & Policy	4
PH 201	Introduction to Epidemiology	4
COMM 312	Health Communications	4

Senior Year

PH 347	Public Health Seminar	4
	Independent Learning*

Social Analysis Track (BA Public Health)

Required Courses

SOCI 239

Introduction to Social Research I

Students must choose two additional courses from the social analysis list:

Social Analysis Electives

AST 232/SOCI 232/WGST 232	Race, Gender & Health	4
HON 303	Hiv/Aids Intersections of Science and Society	4
IT 225	Health Informatics	4
MATH 227	Intermediate Statistics: Design & Analysis	4
MATH 229	Regression Models	4
MGMT 234	Organizational Communication and Behavior	4
PHIL 131	Biomedical Ethics	4
POLS 217	American Public Policy	4
PSYC 232	Health Psychology	4
SOCI 220	Working for Social Justice	4
SOCI 222	Organizing for Social Change	4
SOCI 210	Body Politics	4
SOCI 275	Birth and Death	4
SOCI 321	Sociology of Food	4
SOCI 339	Community Research	4
AST 365	Intimate Family Violence	4

Capstone Requirement

Public Health Seniors will complete their capstone requirement through internship and/or research activities plus associated courses. All Public Health students are required to undertake a senior internship or research experience over one or two semesters (totaling approximately 190 -200 hours) and either submit an internship paper and journal or a research paper or a research thesis.

To meet this capstone requirement, Public Health majors are required to take PH 347 Senior Seminar (4 credits) and one of the following courses for 4 or 8 credits, depending on whether they are undertaking an internship or research experience or thesis work.

For students doing Internships

PH 370

Internship

For students doing independent research

(depending on whether they are BIO or SOCI track)

BIOL 350	Independent Laboratory Research	4
	OR
SOCI 350	Independent Study	4

For Thesis

(depending on whether they are BIO or SOCI track)

BIOL 355	Thesis	4
	OR
SOCI 355	Thesis	4

All students will be required to submit a final paper or thesis and make an oral presentation of their work at an approved internal or external symposium.

Arrangements for satisfying the independent learning requirement must be made with the student’s public health advisor before the end of the junior year.

Public Health Resources in Boston

Students will be encouraged to attend open lectures on Public Health in Boston. In addition, courses developed at Simmons will integrate guest speakers from the pool of expertise in the area.