Syllabus

Graduate Programs in Public Health

GPH 724 Introduction to Occupational Health

Credits - 3

Description

This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to the field of Occupational Health. The course will emphasize the recognition, evaluation and control of hazards in the work environment. General principles and global processes will be linked to local issues and the regulatory environment through case studies.

The prevention of occupational-related disease occupies an important place in the constellation of public health discourse. We spend approximately one third of our life at work and in the United States the indemnity model of workers compensation separates occupational disease from the rest of public health. As a result this subject is treated separately from other topics in public health.

This course includes content and activities, which foster your ability to achieve core competency skills in the basic public health sciences developed by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) A complete list of these competencies is available on the ASPPH website. In addition, there are specific program competencies developed by the UNE Graduate Programs in Public Health.

Course Format:
This course will be delivered through a web-based format and is designed for completion online. Within each of the eight modules, there are reading assignments, web-based projects, written assignments, and discussion questions or case studies. The weekly modules will be posted to the site by 12:01 AM on Wednesdays.

Materials

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Course Goal:

The World Health Organizations identifies social and economic environment as a determinant of health. The economic environment provides opportunity and can present a risk/hazard… but it can be dangerous to our health. This dichotomy is the essence of the study of occupational health. Students completing this course will be able to apply scientific knowledge to evaluate how the work environment fits into this dichotomy. the risks that exist in the working world.

Course Learning Outcomes/Objectives:

By the end of the course students will be able to:

1. Evaluate articles in the general press on occupational health matters in light of current research. This evaluation will be based on discussions in the class text and peer reviewed journals.
2. Critique scientific papers on occupational health. This review will be based on established biostatistics and epidemiology principles.
3. Apply current research on occupational health to public policy. Once again accepted journal articles or the class text will be used.
4. Discuss how research on occupational health is translated to practice.
5. Identify, measure and assess the hazards to health in the work environment.
6. Describe the challenges occupational injury present for the future of public
   health.
7. Describe measures that can be used to monitor the success of an intervention.

Core Competencies:

Environmental Health Sciences

• Describe the direct and indirect human, ecological and safety effects of major environmental and occupational agents.
• Describe genetic, physiologic and psychosocial factors that affect susceptibility to adverse health outcomes following exposure to environmental and occupational hazards.
• Describe federal and state regulatory programs, guidelines and authorities that control environmental and occupational health issues.
• Specify current occupational and environmental risk assessment methods.
• Specify approaches for assessing, preventing and controlling environmental and occupational hazards that pose risks to human health and safety.
• Explain the general mechanisms of toxicity in eliciting a toxic response to various environmental and occupational exposures.

Epidemiology

• Evaluate the strengths and limitations of epidemiologic reports.

Professionalism

• Discuss sentinel events in the history and development of the public health profession and their relevance for practice in the field.

Systems Thinking

• Explain how systems (e.g. individuals, social networks, organizations, and communities) may be viewed as systems within systems in the analysis of public health problems.

Assignments

Homework Questions:

Homework Questions will be assigned each week. They are intended to help you explore the week’s topic in more detail. A one page response should be sufficient for the entire assignment. Homework will be graded with 1 pt assigned to written expression quality and 3 pts assigned to accuracy and relevance of the response.

Class Forum Discussion Topic:

A discussion topic will be posted each week. Students will be encouraged to think about the topic and respond on the class discussion site. The grade will be based on what you contribute to the discussion. The evaluation of your response will be based on:

• Your initial post – points
• Your response to your classmates – 2 points

Utilizing the information that you have learned in the week’s lesson (reading and lectures), combined with your own knowledge, compose your answer – no more than one hundred words. With many classmates sharing in these posts, simplicity will serve us all well. These forum questions do not have right or wrong answers, but are here to encourage dialogue between classmates and to hear different views other than the instructor’s. This class has a wealth of expertise and I encourage you to share that valuable resource openly with each other.

Team Critiques of Journal Articles:

Starting in Week 2, a team of students will be asked to prepare a critique of a Journal article on an occupational health issue. A one to two-page written critique is expected. The team should be able to identify the occupational issue and the effect on health. Pertinent regulatory or occupational health policy issues should be noted. As in other assignments how completely you evaluate the article will be the basis of the grade. Complete citations of your references are required.

Class Project:

A research paper will be the major activity for the class. 

The following topics** are suggested:

• Jobs at risk for stress related disease.
• Are some organizations toxic because of the way they are organized?
• Hazards you notice in your work environment.
• Are stretching exercises helpful in preventing muscular skeletal disease in
  the workplace?
• The ethical consequences of genetic testing in the workplace.
• **Other topics are invited, but would need to be identified with your outline in module 3

Format:

You must follow the AMA reference system for a traditional research paper. Citations and a list of sources consulted are required. Any information drawn from the web should be noted. The text of the paper should be approximately 8-12 pages, double-spaced with normal margins and 11 or 12 pt fonts. Appendices can be added, which do not count as part of the page total. You MUST clearly state your hypothesis and use a scientific approach to prove or disprove it.

Expectations:

I expect everyone’s work to be at a graduate school level in terms of quality. That means all written work will have no spelling or grammar errors. Your papers will be well developed, well written, and should flow easily. You should provide a critical analysis of the topic you choose to research. This means providing the background and significance of the occupational problem (issue), and then responding with your thoughts about whether or not the problem was or is being handled adequately. I want you to think about alternatives to the traditional methods of managing occupational problems, based on what you have learned in class. If an intervention was undertaken, evaluate its effectiveness and suggest changes that may make it more effective.

Progress:

I would like to monitor progress on the class project. Therefore I would suggest the following schedule:

Week 3 – Project outline and approach

Week 7 – Project due

Note on Websites and Sources of Information:

You should be cautious of many web sites since they are frequently established to communicate a particular perspective rather than a scholarly appraisal and reflection of issues. Peer reviewed scholarly publications use an editor, an editorial board, and blind peer review process to evaluate submitted articles in order to evaluate them in terms of their methodology and the relevance of the findings in comparison with previous research. Unfortunately, the ease of the WWW has created a vehicle to access misinformation as well as facilitate access to valuable current information. The strength and the weakness of the World Wide Web is that there is no WWW editor; in using information from the WWW you must perform that editorial function as well as interpreting the relevance of the information for your paper. The misinformation on the web may actually be important in gaining political perspectives, but you will need to be able to identify it as misinformation. In sum, there is a great deal of garbage on the WWW and to the extent that your paper relies on bad information, your paper has little merit or relevance. Your paper should use the peer reviewed journal articles as a primary source and supplement your paper with other resources. The grade on your paper will partially reflect your use of scholarly peer-reviewed articles.

Voluntary Policy Forum:

Participation in the seminar is optional. You will receive up to two extra points for attending. You can also receive up to two additional points (for a potential total of 4 points) by submitting a written policy statement and being prepared to present it in the seminar.

Grading Policy

Your grade in this course will be determined by the following criteria:

Grade Breakdown

	Points
Midterm	12
Team Critique of Journal Article	4
Class Project	24
Homework	28 (7 modules, 4 points each)
Weekly discussions	32 (8 modules, 4 points each)
Total	100

Grade Scale

Grade	Points Grade	Point Average (GPA)
A	94 – 100%	4.00
A-	90 – 93%	3.75
B+	87 – 89%	3.50
B	84 – 86%	3.00
B-	80 – 83%	2.75
C+	77 – 79%	2.50
C	74 – 76%	2.00
C-	70 – 73%	1.75
D	64 – 69%	1.00
F	00 – 63%	0.00