Ithaca College

CHOLERA TO COVID: A HISTORY OF PUBLIC HEALTH- Spring ’21- Diversity Attribute
We are forging our way through the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Perhaps you have unanswered questions: Has this ever happened before? What is public health anyway? When, why,  and how did public health get started?

A timely BRAND NEW COURSE open to all students on the Ithaca College campus will help you understand the pandemic we now know as COVID and provide you with the tools to navigate and situate it.

Cholera to COVID: A History of Public Health will unpack the historical records,  origins of quarantining, and major developments in disease awareness and prevention. It will track the history of medicine and public health, and the study of related diseases and pandemics.

The course is listed with a Diversity Attribute and themes of both Power and Justice and Quest for a Sustainable Future. It is a liberal arts course with a Humanities designation.

Two collaborating sections of the course will be offered in Spring 2021:

Cholera to COVID: A History of Public Health – 43062 – HLTH 21800 – 01 Stewart Auyash

Cholera to COVID: A History of Public Health – 43063 – HIST 21800 – 01  Jonathan Ablard
Both will be taught synchronously on Monday and Wednesday, 4:00-5:15

CHOLERA TO COVID: A HISTORY OF PUBLIC HEALTH description:

The course provides an interdisciplinary and transnational examination of public health history beginning in the pre-colonial era in the Americas to the present

The course focuses on major developments in the organization and structure of public health organizations, the struggles of marginalized and diverse communities to receive proper access to health and health care, and the concepts and perceptions of diseases, illnesses, prevention, and health.

Course topics will be considered through the combined lenses of public health and historiography. It focuses on exploring the first principle of public health: to prevent early death and disability from disease. It also probes historiography, public health policy, and social justice.

Topics and themes engaged include:
- the origin of concepts of health and illness
- the development of organizations intended to promote health and prevent illness
- global health and its relationship to imperialism
- ethics and medical testing
- psychiatry and mental health
- vaccines and drug developments
- the role of government intervention.    

The course is open to all students in any school, any major, and at any level.