Courses offered by PSP

*Courses may change without notice. Contact Carol Coniglio with any questions about course availability.

Advancing Health Equity in Clinical Practice

Racial and ethnic health inequities have long been documented in the United States. Research shows that differences in type and quality of healthcare received by minority and non-minority populations exist and that they occur in the context of broader historic and contemporary social & economic inequities. This elective will help students understand how the social drivers of health impact clinical care delivery and the ways that population health strategies inform practice transformation.

Cancer Health Disparities

Cancer health disparities are the disproportionate cancer burdens experienced by different population groups as defined by a group’s gender, geographic location, race/ethnicity, income, or other characteristics. This course will include didactic sessions and readings to provide students with a foundational understanding of the multilevel determinants of cancer health disparities across the cancer control continuum from prevention to survivorship. Multilevel determinants range from distal factors, like public policy, to proximal factors, such as allostatic load, and genetic factors that can affect cancer outcomes. Topics will include an introduction to cancer health disparities models and frameworks; an overview of the multilevel factors affecting cancer health disparities; populations affected by disparities; components of the cancer continuum; study designs and interventions used to address disparities; and applications for clinical practice.

Clinical Epidemiology

This course will include didactic presentations and clinical epidemiology problem sets to provide students with a well-rounded set of activities designed to present the fundamentals of clinical epidemiology. Topics include an introduction to epidemiology; basic measures and disease occurrence; medical surveillance, disease outbreaks, and the role of the physician in epidemic detection and responses; testing and screening technologies; clinical trials; epidemiological study designs; and genetics. From this course, students will gain a working knowledge of epidemiological principles, how they are used to study populations for questions of clinical significance, and how these principles may be applied to patient care.

Emerging Trends in Public Health

This course is designed to be an overview of the more recent trends in public health practices and research. There will be a combination of selected in-depth readings and discussion on 3-5 specific topics during the week. Potential topics include obesity and chronic disease care and management; terrorism preparedness and responses; infectious and foodborne disease outbreak responses; vaccination strategies, needs, and policies; racial and other minority health disparities; environmental determinants of health; social and cultural determinants of health; and health promotion versus health mandates.

Health Policy Government Relations

This one-week course provides an overview of health policy and its challenges with regard to government relations. Learners will explore how government plays a role in the implementation, progress, sustainability, oversight, and evaluations of policy as it relates to healthcare. Students will have opportunities to engage with legislators, advocates, regulators, and policymakers at the state capital and compose a policy paper on an issue of their choosing.

Medical Malpractice Law for Practitioners 

The elective will familiarize upper-level medical students at Southern Illinois School of Medicine with legal concepts which will affect their practice of medicine. We will cover not only the legal principles at play, but also explore the ways physicians can best avoid legal liability.

Basic Epidemiology and Study Design  

This elective course will include structured lectures, class discussion, and homework. Students will attend brief lectures, work on examples in class, review manuscript and write protocol. The course will review topics such as, but not limited to:

• Disease measures and determinants of disease, Introduction to Study Design, Cohort Studies, Case Control Studies, Randomized Control Trials and Other Study Designs, Confounding in clinical studies
• Basics of Components of a protocol - Introduction, innovation, significance, Objective, specific aims and study design
• Manuscript - Writing introduction, methods, results and discussion sections of a manuscript, and scientific review of journal

Population Health Leadership

This course is designed to be an overview of the opportunities and challenges associated with leadership in the field of population health. Students will become familiar with the workings of national and global agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the Public Health Service (PHS), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations (UN). The role of physicians in these and other agencies will be explored, as well as the more general/specific roles of health officers, epidemiologists, health scientists, health experts, advocacy champions, and program administrators.