Georgetown Public Policy Institute

Homeland Security Sample Electives

PPOL 648: EPIDEMIOLOGY FOR PUBLIC POLICY
This course will provide an introduction to the basic quantitative and qualitative methods of epidemiology, and illustrate their use in public health practice and the development of health and environmental policy. Methodological topics will include the dynamics of disease transmission, the measurement of mortality and morbidity, community health assessment, disease surveillance, outbreak investigation, population-based screening programs, epidemiologic study design and analysis, and ethical issues in epidemiology. Methods will be illustrated through a series of in-depth policy examples, including health disparities, HIV/AIDS surveillance, prenatal HIV screening, quality of health care, privacy and confidentiality of health information, smallpox vaccination policy, syndromic surveillance, SARS, and public health preparedness for bioterrorism.
 
PPOL 612: FEDERALISM & INTERGOVENRMENTAL RELATIONS
The course is divided into three principal sections. The first discusses the political, legal, and intellectual context of federalism. An attempt is made to understand competing models of intergovernmental relations, to specify the values and interests at stake, and to capture the dynamic character of federalism in the U.S. The second explores health policy and education policy in depth, from both an empirical and a normative perspective. Roughly speaking, a week’s discussion of the existing allocation of tasks is followed by a week’s discussion of how tasks might better be allocated. The third and final section examines environmental policy and welfare policy in detail, again by considering both how tasks are currently allocated to different levels of government and whether that allocation of responsibilities makes sense.
 
PPOL 638: INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH: A DEMOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE
The efforts of societies to improve health conditions and increase the length of life have comprised a major on-going social revolution of the past 200 years. Our work this semester is a wide-ranging survey of social, economic, demographic and public health perspectives on that movement. Lectures, readings, and class discussions cover the social history of health in past times, belief systems about the causes of disease and illness, the ecology and etiology of major infectious and chronic diseases, measurement issues, social and economic consequences of changes in mortality and health, and programs designed to affect health conditions.
 
PPOL 810: RISK ASSESSMENT
(1.5 credits) This course offers students an inside look at the scientific, legal and policy foundations for environmental risk assessment. Each class session will examine a different risk to public health and the environment – for example, mercury pollution in air, pesticide contamination of food, microbiological contamination of the water supply, and greenhouse gases in relation to climate change. Students will look at the scientific information that defines the risk potential in each area, as well as controversies growing out of scientific uncertainty and contrasting policy perspectives on approaches to regulation. In the same sense that materials intended to benefit humankind – pesticides, radioactive materials --- can become pollutants, these same materials can become weapons of terrorism when deliberately introduced into a municipal water supply or released in public spaces, presenting entirely new threats that redefine risk to include homeland security as well as public health and the environment.
 
PPOL 811: EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
(1.5 credits) This course module will examine each of the core elements of emergency management in the context of the science, law, medicine, and economics that confront 21st Century leaders in business and government. Case studies, including Hurricane Katrina, will serve as the focus for readings, class discussion and policy research to improve this vital function of government. Key consideration will given to the asymmetrical problems presented to emergency managers, the established authorities and programs, their effectiveness and how to improve them.

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