This course focuses on methods for the analysis of survival data, or time-to-event data. Survival analysis is a method for analyzing survival data or failure (death) time data, that is time-to-event data, which arises in a number of applied fields, such as medicine, biology, public health, epidemiology, engineering, economics, and demography. A special course of difficulty in the analysis of survival data is the possibility that some individual may not be observed for the full time to failure. Instead of knowing the failure time t, all we know about these individuals is that their time-to-failure exceeds some value y where y is the follow-up time of these individuals in the study. Students in this class will learn how to make inference for the event times with censored. Topics to be covered include survivor functions and hazard rates, parametric inference, life-table analysis, the Kaplan-Meier estimator, k-sample nonparametric test for the equality of survivor distributions, the proportional hazards regression model, analysis of competing risks and bivariate failure-time data.
This course will introduce the statistical methods for analyzing censored data, non-normally distributed response data, and repeated measurements data that are commonly encountered in medical and public health research. Topics include estimation and comparison of survival curves, regression models for survival data, logit models, log-linear models, and generalized estimating equations. Examples are drawn from the health sciences.
With the pilot as a focal point, this course explores the opportunities and challenges of telling and sustaining a serialized story over a protracted period of time with an emphasis on the creation, borne out of character, of the quintessential premise and the ongoing conflict, be it thematic or literal, behind a successful series.
Early in the semester, students may be required to present/pitch their series idea. During the subsequent weeks, students will learn the process of pitching, outlining, and writing a television pilot, that may include story breaking, beat-sheets or story outline, full outlines, and the execution of either a thirty-minute or hour-long teleplay. This seminar may include reading pages and giving notes based on the instructor but may also solely focus on the individual process of the writer.
Students may only enroll in one TV Writing workshop per semester.
This course covers the fundamental principles and techniques of experimental designs in clinical studies. This is a required course for MS, DrPH and Ph.D. in Biostatistics. Topics include reliability of measurement, linear regression analysis, parallel groups design, analysis of variance (ANOVA), multiple comparison, blocking, stratification, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), repeated measures studies; Latin squares design, crossover study, randomized incomplete block design, and factorial design.
This course introduces students to advanced computational and statistical methods used in the design and analysis of high-dimensional genetic data, an area of critical importance in the current era of BIG DATA. The course starts with a brief background in genetics, followed by in depth discussion of topics in genome-wide linkage and association studies, and next-generation sequencing studies. Additional topics such as network genetics will also be covered. Examples from recent and ongoing applications to complex traits will be used to illustrate methods and concepts. Students are required to read relevant papers as assigned by the instructor, and each student is required to present a paper during class. Students are also required to work on a project related to the course material, with midterm evaluation of the progress.
We will use one main textbook: The fundamentals of Modern Statistical Genetics by Laird and Lange (Springer, 2012). For further reading, an excellent book is also Handbook of Statistical Genetics, Volume 1 (Wiley, 2007). Another good book is Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Genetic Analysis by Ken Lange (Springer 2002).
A comprehensive overview of methods of analysis for binary and other discrete response data, with applications to epidemiological and clinical studies. It is a second level course that presumes some knowledge of applied statistics and epidemiology. Topics discussed include 2 × 2 tables, m × 2 tables, tests of independence, measures of association, power and sample size determination, stratification and matching in design and analysis, interrater agreement, logistic regression analysis.
This course continues the actor’s work of experiencing voice and text in a free body as a means to develop versatile and transformative speech. Students will deepen and refine their knowledge of the phonemes of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as well as the ability to categorize and utilize Lexical Sets in pursuit of a dialect/accent. Students will demonstrate their ability to notate texts and transcribe dialects and accents into both IPA and practically apply the framework of the Four Pillars and the Voice Recipe.
The student will use these tools, supplemented by handouts, video & audio resources and independent research, to study several accents/dialects in class as well as at least one additional independently researched accent/dialect. The goal of the class is to expand upon the actor’s choices of speech and vocal expression and to acquaint her/him with the resources necessary to truthfully portray an individual utilizing a dialect/accent on stage or screen.
Students will develop their own unique process for learning accents and dialects
, as well as efficiently and effectively applying their progression to texts via a combination of practice sentences, scene work, conversation, improvisation, cold readings, and a prepared monologue. Students will complete the course having created a personal, in-depth method for researching and performing a role in which an accent or dialect is required.
Students will do self-directed and supported research as part of their study. They will consciously and intelligently assimilate this contextual research into their embodiment choices. The final project is a presentation of their research and the sharing of a monologue that is ideally
written in the student’s selected dialect or accent
.
Proseminar for Graduate Students only.
Substantive questions in empirical scientific and policy research are often causal. This class will introduce students to both statistical theory and practice of causal inference. As theoretical frameworks, we will discuss potential outcomes, causal graphs, randomization and model-based inference, causal mediation, and sufficient component causes. We will cover various methodological tools including randomized experiments, matching, inverse probability weighting, instrumental variable approaches, dynamic causal models, sensitivity analysis, statistical methods for mediation and interaction. We will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of these methods. The course will draw upon examples from social sciences, public health, and other disciplines. The instructor will illustrate application of the approaches using R/SAS/STATA software. Students will be evaluated and will deepen the understanding of the statistical principles underlying the approaches as well as their application in homework assignments, a take home midterm, and final take home practicum.
This is an applied statistical methods course. The course will introduce main techniques used in sampling practice, including simple random sampling, stratification, systematic sampling, cluster sampling, probability proportional to size sampling, and multistage sampling. Using national health surveys as examples, the course will introduce and demonstrate the application of statistical methods in analysing across-sectional surveys and repeated and longitudinal surveys, and conducting multiple imputation for missing data in large surveys. Other topics will include methods for variance estimation, weighting, post-stratification, and non-sampling errors. If time allows, new developments in small area estimation and in the era of data science will also be discussed.
This is a course at the intersection of statistics and machine learning, focusing on graphical models. In complex systems with many (perhaps hundreds or thousands) of variables, the formalism of graphical models can make representation more compact, inference more tractable, and intelligent data-driven decision-making more feasible. We will focus on representational schemes based on directed and undirected graphical models and discuss statistical inference, prediction, and structure learning. We will emphasize applications of graph-based methods in areas relevant to health: genetics, neuroscience, epidemiology, image analysis, clinical support systems, and more. We will draw connections in lecture between theory and these application areas. The final project will be entirely “hands on,” where students will apply techniques discussed in class to real data and write up the results.
This one-semester course introduces basic applied descriptive and inferential statistics. The first part of the course includes elementary probability theory, an introduction to statistical distributions, principles of estimation and hypothesis testing, methods for comparison of discrete and continuous data including chi-squared test of independence, t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and their non-parametric equivalents. The second part of the course focuses on linear models (regression) theory and their practical implementation.
MFA acting students will tackle verse drama and heightened language. We will spend much of our time investigating Shakespeare’s writing, with a focus on King Lear and Much Ado about Nothing, and will weave in contemporary heightened language texts throughout the semester.
Goals
To develop students into keen interpreters of heightened theatrical language, both classical and contemporary
To enable students to express their instinctive emotional responses to the rhythms, sounds and the mysteries contained in great language texts
To bring character and the specific imaginative world of each play alive thru the language
To foster each actor’s unique voice
Students in this course will learn and practice the fundamental methods and concepts of the randomized clinical trial: protocol development, randomization, blindedness, patient recruitment, informed consent, compliance, sample size determination, crossovers, collaborative trials. Each student prepares and submits the protocol for a real or hypothetical clinical trial.
Clinical trials are the pilars of clinical research. The main objective of this course is to prepare researchers to design and conduct complex clinical trials that yield valid and reliable results. The course emphasizes on several methodological and practical issues related to the design and analysis of clinical experiments. The course builds on the knowledge and skills gained in the course Randomized Clinical Trial (P8140). The objective of this course is to provide students with working knowledge of certain methodological issues that arise in designing a Clinical Trial. Topics include: Design of small studies (Phase I and II studies), Interim analyses and group sequential methods, Design of survival studies, Multiple outcome measures, Equivalency Trials, Multi-center studies, and trials with multiple outcome measures.
A good grasp of the fundamentals of Population Genetics is crucial for an understanding of any field of human genetics. This is precisely the aim of this course: to provide to students the key elements of Population Genetics with a view to equip them with the right tools to understand the field of genetics in general and to pursue further studies in human genetics. The course uses various evolutionary principles to explain key population genetics concepts.
The course will introduce students to statistical models and mthods for longitudinal data, i.e., repeatedly measured data over time or under different conditions. The topics will include design and sample size calculation, Hotelling's T^2, multivariate analysis of variance, multivariate linear regression (Generalized linear models), models for correlation, unbalanced repeated measurements, Mixed effects models, EM algorithm, methods for non-normally distributed data, Generalized estimating equations, Generalized linear mixed models, and Missing data.
In this course, you will learn to design and build relational databases in MySQL and to write and optimize queries using the SQL programming language. Application of skills learned in this course will be geared toward research and data science settings in the healthcare field; however, these skills are transferable to many industries and application areas. You will begin the course examining the pitfalls of using Excel spreadsheets as a data storage tool and then learn how to build properly-designed relational databases to eliminate the issues related to spreadsheets and maintain data integrity when storing and modifying data. You will then learn two aspects of the SQL programming language: 1) the data manipulation language (DML), which allows you to retrieve data from and populate data into database tables (e.g., SELECT, INSERT INTO, DELETE, UPDATE, etc.), and 2) the data definition language (DDL), which allows you to create and modify tables in a database (e.g., CREATE, ALTER, DROP, etc.). You will additionally learn how to optimize SQL queries for best performance, use advanced SQL functions, and utilize SQL within common statistical software programs: R and SAS.
Concern about the retreat of democracy, democratic recession and/or democratic backsliding are proliferating in the political theoretical and comparative politics literature. While domestic and external threats to democracy and reverse waves are not new, there is widespread agreement that today even long-consolidated, wealthy democracies are now at risk and that new dynamics of de-democratization are at play. This course will involve an in-depth study of the political theory and comparative politics literature on the relevant concepts and dynamics: transition, democratization, de-democratization, democratic backsliding, hybridization, “post-democracy” and the assumptions undergirding them. We will discuss the various concepts of democracy and regime used or presupposed in the relevant literature and assess how these have evolved. The purpose of the first part of the course is to rethink the basic concepts and theories regarding democracy breakdown, transitions to democracy, democratic consolidation, backsliding and hybridization of democratic regimes and to clarify the conceptual and political issues regarding thresholds, cycles, and the like. The last third of the course will focus on cycles of democratization, de-democratization and re-democratization in the case of the U.S.: the oldest representative constitutional democracy and the one most typically taken as the exemplar of a consolidated democratic regime.
General aspects of normal human growth and development from viewpoints of physical growth, cellular growth and maturation, and adjustments made at birth; the impact of altered nutrition on these processes. Prenatal and postnatal malnutrition, the role of hormones in growth; relationships between nutrition and disease in such areas as anemia, obesity, infection, and carbohydrate absorption.
Data is most useful when it can tell a story. Health analytics merges technologies and skills used to deliver business, clinical and programmatic insights into the complex components that drive medical outcomes, costs and oversight. By focusing on business intelligence and developing tools to evaluate clinical procedures, devices, and programs, organizations can use comparative and outcomes data to strengthen financial performance. This information can improve the way healthcare is evaluatedand delivered for better outcomes across the spectrum of health industries.
In this course, students will learn SAS as a tool to manipulate and analyze healthcare data and begin to understand what clinical and public health interventions work best for improving health, for example. Students will learn how to organize and analyze data to inform the practices of healthcare providers and policymakers to make evidence-based resource allocation decisions.Comparative & Effectiveness Outcomes Research (CEOR) certificate students will take this course inpreparation for the capstone class.SAS basics (e.g., creating SAS datasets and new variables, sorting, merging, reporting) and advanced statistics (e.g., using a logistical regression to create propensity scores for matched cohort analyses) will be covered.
Fall: Review of current literature providing complementary information pertinent to other nutrition areas, with a view to developing a critical approach to the assimilation of scientific information. Spring: Obesity: Etiology, Prevention, and Treatment. Controversies involving regulation of weight and energy balance. Interaction between genetics and the environment are considered as well as clinical implications of our current knowledge.
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Applications of behavioral insights are expanding rapidly across civic, medical, social, corporate, educational, and economic professions. This class covers the underlying theories for behavioral science, using scientific and real-world examples of applications from multiple disciplines and locations. The course will also cover methods for behavioral policy implementation and evaluation, focusing particularly on healthcare policy perspectives. Students will learn a broad range of strategies through a highly interactive format, taught partially in a classroom setting in addition to remote asynchronous and synchronous sessions. Students will gain experience designing and developing their own evidence-based behavioral interventions as a part of a group project.
Applications of behavioral insights are expanding rapidly across civic, medical, social, corporate, educational, and economic professions. This class covers the underlying theories for behavioral insights, using scientific and real-world examples of applications from multiple disciplines and locations. The course will also cover methods for behavioral implementation and evaluation, focusing particularly on healthcare policy perspectives. Students will learn a broad range of strategies through a highly interactive format, taught partially in a classroom setting in addition to remote asynchronous and synchronous sessions. Students will gain experience designing and developing their own evidence- based behavioral interventions as a part of a semester-long project.
The course is taught in three phases. The first phase will introduce fundamentals of behavioral science and evidence-based policy. Students will then spend the majority of the course on examples of behavioral insights such as nudges in practice, in a healthcare context and beyond. The course will end with sessions on practical applications, where students will learn to identify appropriate situations for behavioral interventions and produce a final project in a chosen context.
Aspects of carbohydrate, lipid, protein, and energy metabolism relevant to the understanding of nutrition at cellular and organism levels. Biochemical and physiological aspects of vitamin and mineral metabolismand action during both normal conditions and deficiency toxicity states.
This semester’s colloquium focuses on new (and not-so-new) literature on the eighteenth century in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic and Black Sea regions, and Siberia. Problems that have attracted a growing international community of scholars include: economic development and corresponding intellectual currents such as mercantilism or physiocratism; language and translation, both in a literal sense and in terms of political concepts; natural resources and environmental issues; agricultural and industrial labor and peasant mobility; relations of church and state, sacred and secular, from the
Spiritual Regulation
to Catherine II’s secularization of church property; the court society and diplomatic representation, ceremony, and ritual; scientific expeditions and exploration of Siberia; the Seven Years’ War. Such questions transcend an older focus on the two “great” rulers and their reforms.
From 1970 until today, America’s prison and jail population has increased sevenfold, from some 300,000 to around 2.2 million adults and children behind bars. Accounting for less than 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants, but about 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated inhabitants, the United States is the most incarcerating society in human history. The U.S. federal and state governments imprison more people and at higher rates than do any other governments on the planet, and they do so today more than they did at any other period in American history.
This astounding amount of human confinement (commonly called “mass incarceration”) disproportionately impacts the polity’s poorest communities of color—especially young Black males—which suffer from chronic conditions and infectious disease; face higher mortality rates; and experience, because of criminal records, less opportunity to secure gainful employment, stable housing, access to safety net programs, and education. Female incarceration over the past few decades has grown at twice the rate of male incarceration, and black women, specifically, are twice as likely as white women to serve time. Imprisonment exposes people to a wide range of circumstances proving detrimental to long-term physical and mental health, like inadequate sanitation, poor ventilation, and solitary confinement. And most formerly incarcerated people return to their communities with deep wounds and new traumas resulting from incarcerated life and from isolation through long separations from families and social supports.
This course sits at the intersection of public health, policy, and law. The course will explore the full spectrum of causes and costs of mass incarceration as a public health crisis. This course will examine how exposures to different structures of the American criminal punishment apparatus (e.g., law enforcement, jail, prison, or detention centers, community supervision) shape the health of people, families, and society. Observing mass incarceration as an epidemic, this course will adopt a useful public-health model of prevention to contemplate a concerted approach consisting of primary, secondary, and tertiary strategies for unwinding mass human imprisonment while advancing enhanced public health for the nation’s most disempowered members. This course will pay special attention to acutely at-risk populations, including detained youth and youth of incarcerated adults, pregnant incarcerated people, and the elderly. And the role that
The Course introduces students to the fundamentals of case competitions and prepares them to compete in select case competitions over the course of the year. Case competitions afford students the opportunity to apply classroom learning to dynamic health care organizational and industry problems. The Course covers topics ranging from the framework for breaking down cases to common analytical techniques and presentation skills. We will build the foundational skills for students to prepare and deliver comprehensive, professional analyses in competitive settings.
This course will introduce the theory and frameworks that ground advocacy and community organizing with the aim of enabling such practices within public health and beyond. Students will deepen their understanding of the strategies behind effective advocacy, capacity building, and organizing, both in the field and within institutions. In learning history, power structures, power relations, and pre-existing models, students will learn not only about changemaking but how to affect systemic change themselves. They will learn frameworks to understand social problems and alter power relations including theory of change, relational power building, and power mapping. By examining epidemics, social movements, community health, institutional failures, and public policy, this course will provide students the ability to understand the “why” and the “how” of becoming an advocate and organizer.
This course inaugurates a new seminar series that moves across the pre- and post-1945 divide to address cultural forms that navigate intersections among gender, sexuality, mind, body, self, race, empire, technology, militarism (among other concerns). Working across disciplines, the present seminar will focus on the institutionalization of care as central to the idea of the modern and the empirical project of modernization. We begin with an overview on science and technology followed by an engagement with clinical psychiatry, women’s health, and literary representations that connect incarceration to broader rehabilitative praxis. Building off of the discussion of the colonial medical complex, the seminar will conclude with a consideration of the relations between the colonial modern and postcolonial developmentalism.
Who gets what and why? Policy makers and stakeholders in the healthcare space must make difficult decisions involving trade-offs that are often controversial. By exploring a series of ethical frameworks and contentious healthy policy issues, students will learn to apply a systematic process of ethical analysis to justify policies in a legitimate way. Through a dynamic teaching approach involving case studies, role playing and active discussion, we will explore how acceptability and feasibility of controversial policies can be enhanced to promote health equity using tools from distributive justice, procedural justice and bioethics. Topics of discussion include migrant health/migration policy, rationing at the VA, using algorithmic fairness in policy design and nudging in the safety-net.
POLS GR8228 is designed as a graduate-level introduction to the study of political communication. As an introduction to the field, it is structured to cover a wide range of topics and methodological approaches. No single course can provide comprehensive coverage of a fascinating subfield with as long and diverse a history as political communication. As such, this seminar will focus on relatively recent work. Students will leave this course with a strong grasp of major theories, trends, methods, findings and debates in this area of study, as well as the gaps in our knowledge and promising directions for future research.
We are currently living in a climate of apathy, collective outrage, growing distrust in public institutions, and an onslaught of dangerous dis- and misinformation, especially about science. For those of us in public health these are challenging times. How can we write about pressing issues—race, disease, poverty, women’s rights, depression, homeless—and reach an audience that is contentious or refuses to listen? How can get these same people to care? In this class, we delve into the art of storytelling through reading human centered non-fiction and essays that focus on/speak to different public health issues. We will look closely at each genre, reading with an eye toward examining its goal, the narrative structure, main character, and issue at hand. Taking what we’ve learned we will apply these techniques to our own writing, developing the storytelling skills necessary to effectively communicate and “win over” the general public, and hopefully inspire and persuade readers to listen and act.
Popular media routinely tout imminent breakthroughs that often fizzle. In this course, we examine advances that indisputably changed medical practice in the last quarter of the 20th century through case histories. The case histories suggest that protracted,
multiplayer
innovations – not solitary breakthroughs – produce transformational results. Yet venturesome individuals who do not follow the crowd remain crucial. Engaging stories make the vast number of facts presented in the case histories memorable. But the course treats learning new facts mainly as a valuable byproduct. Rather, we rely on the case histories in two more subtle ways, namely: (1) developing skills and judgment and (2) sharpening goals and aspirations.
Individual projects in composition.
By studying healthcare innovations within the context of health reform, students can learn how novel approaches can be integrated into reform strategies to overcome systemic inefficiencies, enhance equity in healthcare delivery, and ultimately contribute to the goal of improving health systems. This approach encourages students to think creatively and practically about transforming healthcare systems to deliver improved outcomes and better serve the needs of populations, particularly in low and middle-income countries. The course is structured around the analytical framework of five policy levers of financing, payment, organization, regulation, and persuasion, as critical determinants of health system performance developed by Roberts, Hsiao, Berman & Reich.
This class is intended for students to develop composing skills for creating music “between the keys” (or “outside the keys”) of a traditionally tuned piano or organ. We will be analyzing relevant works and techniques of the present and of the past. Students compose and perform/present their own music influenced by these works and techniques. We will start with “just intonation” and with music independent from Western traditions. Students are free to enroll for “Music beyond 12 tone temperament II” before “Music beyond 12 tone temperament I”. Knowledge of the harmonic row’s intonation, at least until the 17th partial, is mandatory.
This course aims to familiarize graduate students with the different methods and approaches that US and European scholars have used to study gender and sexuality in other societies generally, and the way they study them in the context of the Arab World specifically. The course will also explore how Arab scholars have also studied their own societies. We will survey these different approaches, both theoretical and empirical, outlining their methodological difficulties and limitations. Readings will consist of theoretical elaborations of these difficulties and the methodological and empirical critiques that the field itself has generated in order to elaborate how gender and sexuality in the Arab World have been studied, or more accurately, not studied, and how many of these methodological pitfalls can be avoided.
In 1964, Fluxus artist Daniel Spoerri fulfilled an unrealized wish of Marcel Duchamp’s by stretching a replica of the Mona Lisa over an ironing board. For her 2017 survey at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Tania Bruguera included a photograph of a urinal she had installed in The Queens Museum, accompanied by the statement: “It’s time to return Duchamp’s urinal to the bathroom.” However we interpret these gestures, separated by more than fifty years, it’s clear that Duchamp’s “reciprocal readymade” endures as a potent model for the transvaluation of artwork and artistic practices into different states and uses.
This course introduces the fundamental physical principles that govern the behavior of the earth's atmosphere and climate. Topics to be studied include the general circulation of the atmosphere, motions on a rotating sphere, atmospheric thermodynamics, radiative transfer, the basic chemistry and physics of air pollution, the hydrologic cycle, climate dynamics and synoptic weather. The effects of these systems on public health, including mental health, rates of exercise, infectious disease, allergens and asthma, heat morbidity and mortality, will be assessed throughout the course.
What does interaction have to do to storytelling? How do we tell stories within media that are non-linear, including games, virtual reality, and immersive theater? How can we craft narratives that emerge from the dynamics of interaction, narratives experienced through exploration and choice? What design strategies exist regarding an understanding of character, plot, drama, time, space, and event within interactive fictions? This course will take a close look at the mechanics of storytelling within dynamic media, exploring connections between interactivity and narrative experience. The course will examine examples ranging from the design of Live Action Role Playing games to massively multi-player experiences, from hypertext to tarot cards, from Oculus to Punchdrunk. Content will be delivered through lectures, reading, discussion, case studies, and small studio-based exercises. Elective open to all SOA students.
This course introduces students to the basic principles and practices of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. This field encompasses the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of chemical, physical, and biological hazards arising in and from the workplace, home, and ambient environments. The course content encompasses many diverse aspects of the field such as the inhalation hazards of gases and vapors, the effects of particle size and morphology on aerodynamic behavior, respiratory system deposition, and disease risk, factors influencing dermal permeation of chemicals, biological monitoring for chemicals and their metabolites, and approaches to measurement and associated instrumentation. This course is intended to provide a basic understanding of the field for students in Public Health disciplines, and is the starting point for students who may choose to pursue occupational and environmental hygiene as a career.
Molecular epidemiology is an interdisciplinary research approach that incorporates advanced laboratory methods into epidemiology to identify causes of disease and facilitate intervention. It is increasingly utilized as a tool to understand interactions between external ‘environmental’ exposures and genetic and other susceptibility factors, and to identify ‘at-risk’ populations and individuals. This course will cover conceptual and methodological issues in molecular epidemiology including the application of biomarkers to the study of disease causation, risk assessment, and prevention. The course covers principles in the selection and validation of biomarkers, study design and statistical methods in data analysis including gene-environment interactions, biological sample collection, storage, and banking, and current laboratory methods for biomarker analysis. These principles will be illustrated using examples from current molecular epidemiologic research in cancer, neurodevelopment, childhood asthma, screening, risk assessment and disease prevention. Students will gain proficiency and experience in critically evaluating key papers in molecular epidemiologic studies.
This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the molecular events associated with chemically-induced degenerative and proliferative diseases.
Prerequisites: ECON G6411 and G6412. Students will make presentations of original research.
Review of continuum mechanics in Cartesian coordinates; tensor calculus and the calculus of variation; large deformations in curvilinear coordinates; electricity problems and applications.
This course explains the toxic effects of chemicals (including drugs and other agents) on living organisms. An overview of the history, principles, mechanisms and regulatory applications of toxicology is provided. Also, the absorption, distribution and excretion of toxins are described. The toxic effects of chemicals (including cancer) on the digestive (liver), respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, hematopoetic, immune, dermal, urinary, endocrine and reproductive systems and development forms the major portion of the course. Members of chemical classes such as solvents, metals, pesticides, air pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and ozone), radiation, plants, fungi, venoms and pharmaceuticals are used as examples. Environmental toxicology form the primary emphasis, but aspects of occupational, food, pharmaceutical and clinical toxicology are also included.
An optional addition hour for credit is provided for those students needing a background in anatomy, histology, chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology, and the normal physiology of the digestive (liver), respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, hematopoetic, immune, dermal, urinary, endocrine and reproductive systems.
Prerequisites: G6215 and G6216. Open-economy macroeconomics, computational methods for dynamic equilibrium analysis, and sources of business cycles.
How should society regulate environmental health risks? Some argue that the health of the citizenry is paramount, and that the role of government should be to protect against any possibility of harm. Others back an approach based on a full accounting of the benefits and costs of environmental protection. And in the current political environment, ideological positions sometimes eclipse analysis. These debates occur against a backdrop of uncertainty about the health risks posed by specific environmental insults. In spite of all this ambiguity and complexity, policy happens: congress makes laws, regulatory agencies enforce the law, and most polluters comply.
In this class we will study several frameworks for thinking about these questions. Environmental economics, in the form of benefit-cost analyses, is the primary framing used by the US Federal Government. We will explore its conceptual foundations and its applications in the US regulatory context. In our discussions of the sociology of science perspective, we will examine how environmental health scientists interact with the policy process, and think through how such interactions might be improved. The third perspective is decision theory, and in particular, choice under uncertainty. We will consider the basic analytics of expected value, and some permutations and applications that are germane to the environmental health policy domain. In addition to these conceptual frameworks, we will analyze and interpret cases drawn from recent experiences with environmental health regulation in the United States.
This course is designed to introduce Mailman students to core frameworks for thinking about environmental health policy. The course is open to all students.
Science Basic to Public Health Practice (SBPHP) is a 3 credit, one semester course designed to provide students with a better understanding of the science underlying topical issues vital to public health. In past years, this class has examined scientific support (or not) for legislative and policy decisions concerning the potential human health effects related to exposure to bisphenols, UV and low-dose ionizing radiation, mercury and other heavy metals, GMO foods, alternative energy sources, or talcum (baby) powder. In addition to case studies such as these, the course provides a basic introduction to the biochemistry, cell & molecular biology, genetics and toxicology surrounding carcinogenesis, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption and damage to specific target organs and tissues. Students in this course are often drawn from a cross-section of different educational and scientific backgrounds including the Schools of Public Health, Physicians & Surgeons, Journalism, SIPA and Law. The diversity of backgrounds provide for vigorous discussions from various perspectives and enriches the student experience. In essence, this course is designed for and appropriate for any student interested in gaining a clearer basic science understanding of the biological processes underlying current public health concerns.
Constitutive equations of viscoelastic and plastic bodies. Formulation and methods of solution of the boundary value, problems of viscoelasticity and plasticity.
Through the process of developing, pitching, researching, and writing a treatment for a documentary short, students will develop an overview of the documentary process from development through distribution. The course will touch on research, story, production and post production logistics, legal, financing, budgeting, distribution, and ethical issues in the creation of documentary films.
This class, will primarily focus on the challenges of interpreting and performing Shakespeare.
Risk Assessment is the process of correlating the amount of exposure (to a chemical, activity, or situation) with expected harm. This Department core course is primarily concerned with toxic substances to which humans are exposed through their environments, in the context of whether and how exposure to such toxicants should be controlled: risk assessment. Toxicological and epidemiological principles are used primarily to provide (uncertain) quantitative estimates of the harm associated with a given level of exposure: dose-response. Using a dose-response relationship necessitates quantifying exposure, an uncertain endeavor that relies on understanding human physiology and behavior. The quantitative estimates of harm from anthropogenic activity that risk assessment gives are just the starting point for the challenge of risk management: What do we do now?" The resulting decisions are influenced by both economic factors (e.g., cost-benefit analysis) and psychological factors (e.g., risk perception)."
This course is a quantitative companion to Molecular Epidemiology (P8307) and will discuss quantitative methods and considerations needed to conduct epidemiology research involving biomarkers. Using ‘real world’ examples, this course covers topics including data accession, storage, and sharing. It includes a comprehensive evaluation of sources of biomarker data variability and how these features are handled analytically in the conduct of molecular epidemiology research. The course covers topics including how to handle values less than the limits of detection, the identification of outliers and variability due to batch effects, freeze/thaw cycles along with sources of biologic variability including urinary dilution and lipid concentration. It also discuss methods for implementing genome-wide and epigenome-wide association studies, sample and data pooling along with considerations for returning individual and aggregate-level molecular epidemiology results to study participants, scientific and lay audiences. Class activities include quantitive demonstrations and discussions. Assessment will be based on four assignments that include responses to quantitive and qualitative prompts using R-markdown.
Careful consideration is needed in the design and implementation of molecular epidemiologic studies that leverage biomarkers of exposure, disease susceptibility, disease etiology, prediction, and prognosis. This course aims to provide insight into major methodologies and logistic considerations when incorporating the use of biological specimens in epidemiologic research from concept to publication. For this purpose, we will utilize simulated laboratory experiences and a mock molecular epidemiology study for hands-on insight into the application of biomarkers in epidemiologic settings in conjunction with class discussions on published findings. Class activities include small group assignments where each group takes responsibility of designated tasks as part of a mock molecular epidemiology study and report back their activities for in-class discussion throughout the semester. This work will culminate in a final report at the end of the semester. In addition, 1-2 students in each session will be assigned to lead an in-class discussion that critically exams a published molecular epidemiology study. Students will also complete a virtual lab notebook that assesses material covered in the assigned virtual laboratory.
To begin to develop an understanding and vocabulary in relation to theatrical design with a central emphasis on the roles of scenery and costumes in telling a dramatic story.
The class will begin with a general introduction into the issues and goals of the course, after which there will be three sessions devoted to issues of scene design and three sessions devoted to issues of costume design. Shakespeare’s Hamlet will be the focus for these discussions. Over the course of these sessions, directors will be asked to gather visual research and, in the end, arrive at a concept for their production of the play.
Directors will also be asked to visit one set and one costume class so that they can see how designers are grappling with the same principles and developing different approaches to interpreting and realizing a theatrical text for the stage.
This class will focus in on how to direct opera and will cover the process of making an opera from analysing the score until the opening night. The aims are to: 1) Introduce theatre directing students to the practical differences between theatre and opera directing; 2) Equip them with practical skills and knowledge so that they could walk into any opera rehearsal room (either as an assistant or a director) and know exactly what to expect and how to manage the process; 3) Offer them techniques to strengthen their skill of interpretation or concept by guiding them to focus in on one specific opera case study; and 4) Introduce them to specialist professional practitioners, like conductors, singers and set designers, to allow them to understand the art form through the lens of the collaborators the opera director works with.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has emerged as an essential tool for public health researchers and practitioners. The GIS for Public Health course will offer students an opportunity to gain skills in using GIS software to apply spatial analysis techniques to public health research questions. The laboratory section of the course will give students the opportunity for hands-on learning in how to use GIS systems to analyze data and produce maps and reports. These laboratory exercises will be designed to increasingly challenge the students to incorporate the analytic skills and techniques they have learned in other courses with the geospatial and spatial statistics techniques commonly used in GIS. Guest speakers will be invited to share their real-world examples of GIS in Public Health research and practice. These speakers will include Columbia researchers and staff from government agencies or non-profit organizations.
The purpose of this course is to provide practical experience in analyzing epidemiologic data. The goal is to familiarize you with various analytic methods and their uses to answer specific epidemiologic research questions. Brief reviews of relevant statistical methods, their applications in epidemiologic research and interpretation of results will be covered step by step in this course. You will be provided with several data sets from epidemiologic (case-control and cohort) studies and will be asked to conduct analyses of these data.
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This is a semester-long course that addresses issues in adult psychiatric epidemiology. The course begins with a review of the origins of psychiatric epidemiology in several classic studies. It also describes major recent studies, presents evidence concerning the reliability and validity of psychiatric diagnosis in community studies and summarizes evidence derived from epidemiological studies that is relevant to issues of etiology. The course also covers selection into treatment, treatment effectiveness, the distribution of treatment, and social factors affecting course and role functioning.
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Methods used in cancer epidemiology are critically examined through weekly assigned readings, lectures and class discussion. Topics covered in this course include molecular and cellular biology of cancer, basic mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and the roles of chemical, viral, hormonal, genetic and nutritional factors in human cancer. The natural history of cancer analysis of time trends in cancer incidence, mortality, survival and geographic distribution are also examined. Screening and treatment issues will be discussed.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Students will make presentations of original research.
Tech Arts: Advanced Post Production covers advanced techniques for picture and sound editing and the post production workflow process. The goal of the course is to give you the capabilities to excel in the field of post production. We will focus extra attention to concepts and workflows related to long-form projects that can contain a team of technical artists across the post production pipeline. We will cover preparing for a long-form edit, digital script integration, color management and continuity, advanced trimming, and advanced finishing. The hands-on lessons and exercises will be conducted using the industry-standard Non-Linear Editing Systems, Avid Media Composer, and Davinci Resolve.
Each week’s class will consist of hands-on demonstrations and self-paced practice using content created by the students and provided by the program.
The primary objectives in this course are to gain knowledge about and to critically engage with current topics in the field of injury control and prevention, to develop research and scientific inquiry skills, and to make meaningful connections with experts in this field. In this course, we will learn from experts on four topics in the field of injury control and prevention. By the end of the semester, students will have improved their ability to interpret peer-reviewed research on current topics in injury control and prevention and will be prepared to go forward asking important scientific questions in this field, with a solid sense of what is already known and what is worthy of further inquiry and investigation. Readings will be determined by the four guest speakers based on what is relevant to their field of research.
Public health surveillance is the fundamental mechanism that public health agencies use to monitor the health of the communities they serve. It is a core function of public health practice, and its purpose is to provide a factual basis from which agencies can appropriately set priorities, plan programs, and take actions to promote and protect the public's health. This course will cover the principles of public health surveillance, including historical context, vital registration, disease reporting regulations and notifiable diseases, surveillance registries, surveillance for behaviors and risk factors, administrative data sources in surveillance, epidemiologic uses of surveillance data, legal and ethical issues, and dissemination of surveillance information.
The goals of this class are to familiarize the students with the methodological issues and design strategies used in environmental epidemiology and to develop the student's critical thinking regarding the application of epidemiologic methods. The course covers traditional approaches to environmental epidemiology such as, occupational cohorts and ecologic studies and also covers newer molecular epidemiologic approaches to exposure assessment and the analysis of gene-environment interactions. Discussions of classic environment-disease associations, such as aflatoxin and liver cancer, illustrate methodologies used to investigate the health effects of environmental exposures. Each week readings will be assigned for discussion in the following class, students are expected to be prepared to discuss the readings.
Prerequisites: the instructors permission. Students will make presentations of original research.
This intensive course offers an introduction to multiple disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches to the major issues defining the emergence, persistence, and transformation of the countries that once comprised the Soviet bloc. The course explores the history, politics, economies, societies, and political cultures of Russia, the non-Russian republics of the former USSR, and East Central Europe, focusing on the conceptual, methodological, and theoretical developments employed by Soviet studies in North America and related disciplines. It also critically interrogates the enduring relevance and problems posed by the widespread use of the term “Soviet legacy” in reference to contemporary features and challenges faced by the region.
The intensive nature of this course is reflected in two ways- preparation and focus. First, the course carries a substantial reading load designed to inform and prepare students for the course sessions. These assignments will mostly be academic readings, but may also include short videos, news articles, and digital archival materials. In order to use our time together productively, the lectures and discussion will build upon, not review, the assignments for the session. Each session typically will be split into 2 segments, roughly of 55-60 minutes each. Many of these segments will be taught by guest lecturers who will give 30 mins presentations on their topic and then field questions. During our limited time for Q&A students should ask single, concise questions.
Clinical epidemiology is a basic science of clinical medicine and a subspecialty of epidemiology. It is the application of epidemiologic methods to studying problems encountered in clinical settings pertaining to the causes and management of diseases and medical conditions in individual patients. The central paradigm of clinical epidemiology is that exposure and outcome patterns of the disease in different population groups can be analyzed methodically to gain scientific knowledge about the etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, safety, and effectiveness of therapeutic and other interventions. Epidemiologic methods are increasingly used in clinical investigations to provide scientific evidence for assessing clinical practice and for improving clinical decision making and outcomes. This course is designed to introduce students to basic theories, concepts, and methods of clinical epidemiology, and provide them with the necessary tools and skills to critically appraise the clinical research literature, competently design and conduct clinical studies, and appropriately analyze and interpret clinical data. This course consists of one lecture and one laboratory session per week. Students will be evaluated based on a mid-term exam, final exam, and homework assignments.
Over the past thousand years, modern capitalism has expanded from its European starting point to the entire world. Modern economic activity started with a commercial revolution in the late Middle Ages, concentrated in European city states like Venice and Genoa. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, European colonialism spread this commercial revolution around the globe. The Industrial Revolution in northwestern Europe led to unprecedented and sustained economic growth, which allowed European nations to dominate the rest of the world economically, politically, and militarily, with mixed results for the rest of the world. Over the past hundred years, global capitalism has continued to present countries, and the people in them, with enormous opportunities, crushing constraints, and major political dilemmas.
The course is an introductory overview of the economics and politics of international economic activity in historical and theoretical perspective.
This applied course introduces students to the epidemiology of HIV infection in resource-rich and resource-limited settings. Class sessions focus on the latest approaches to conducting surveillance of HIV and AIDS; the evolving burden of HIV infection in sub-groups, including men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, adolescent girls and older people; the development and evaluation of prevention- and treatment-related interventions across a range of settings; and the application of epidemiologic methods to understand historical and current controversies and determine best practices. Activate participation in class discussion and exercises, homework, a group presentation and a final project will be used to evaluate student progress towards learning objectives.
Malaria imposes a profound burden on public health and inhibits economic growth. It is distributed over 90 countries accounting for an annual estimate of 400 million cases and over one million deaths, most of them in children. Pregnant women are more vulnerable to malaria, resulting in infection, miscarriages, severe anemia, maternal mortality and low birth weight. Low birth weight poses the greatest risk for neonatal death. The disease also affects non-immune immigrants, refugees and displaced populations during their movement from non-endemic to endemic areas. Resistance to anti-malarial drugs and insecticides by the Plasmodium human parasites and Anopheles vector mosquitoes respectively is widespread. This course examines the ecological and epidemiological characteristics of malaria, transmission dynamics, economic costs of malaria, available intervention strategies and the global challenge of its control.
This course focuses on the branch of epidemiology concerned with how social arrangements, processes, and interactions shape the population distribution of health and disease and produce social inequalities in health. The sub-discipline of social epidemiology has grown dramatically in the past decade and, while still evolving as an interdisciplinary enterprise, it is now an established field of etiologic inquiry, both incorporating and influencing the conventional theories, methods, and principles of epidemiology. This course will familiarize students with the key theories, concepts, methods, findings, and ongoing debates in social epidemiology. Through lectures, readings, and discussion we will review the major social determinants of health, the theories and empirical evidence with respect to how social conditions “get under the skin,” and the methodological challenges involved in measuring social phenomena and making causal inferences about the relationship between social factors and health. By the end of the course students will understand the theoretical, substantive, and methodological parameters of this growing sub-discipline of epidemiologic inquiry, and be able to evaluate both its strengths and limitations.
In what ways has religion been deployed as an analytical category in 20th century American history? Through a case study of how Jews and antisemitism have been conceptualized, theorized and narrated within the annals of American history, we will ponder what to American historians think about religion. What is the heuristic value of such a category? We will also research in Columbia’s archives to see how Jews and Judaism are discussed. This course will also introduce students to the theoretical innovations in the field of contemporary religion and to suggest ways that the study of religion intersects, intervenes and complicates the fields of American urban, cultural, and political history.
In recent years, a number of infections have appeared for the first time, while many others have spread rapidly to new areas; these are termed emerging infectious diseases". HIV/AIDS, SARS, the recent Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), human infections with H5N1 and H7N9 avian influenza, and a number of others are recent examples. Infectious causes have also been implicated in such chronic diseases as gastric ulcers and certain cancers. This course examines the concept of emerging infectious diseases and our current understanding of emergence. The course will consider methods for identifying and studying emerging pathogens, factors responsible for disease emergence, and methods for surveillance and intervention.