MD549/649: Community Health (4 units)

Dan Fountain, MD, MPH, Visiting Professor of Medical Missions
Summer 2006 Pasadena

DESCRIPTION:

This class is designed to equip Christian health practitioners to be able to facilitate people and communities to change health-related behavior and to bring about measurable positive changes in health conditions – birth, death, and morbidity rates, sanitation, clean water, land management practices and food production in an intercultural setting.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• Identify and explain at least ten different principles for good practice in community health and development
• Describe and demonstrate an ability to integrate biblical and scientific concepts of health
• Understand different approaches to communicating biblical and scientific concepts of health to peoples with different worldviews (i.e. animists or Muslims)
• Recognize and begin developing the skills and attitudes necessary to help adults learn new ideas

COURSE FORMAT: The course will consist of seven hours of instruction daily for four days followed by attendance at the Global Missions Health Conference on August 4-5, 2006 at Fuller Theological Seminary. Instruction will involve presentations, small and plenary discussions, readings, and reports.

REQUIRED READING: A total of 1300 pages is required, including all of the required reading below and augmented by your personal research. If you have previously read any of the required texts, please select an alternative text approved by the instructor.

Booth, Beverley, Kiran Martin & Ted Lankester, Urban Health & Development, London, Macmillan Education, 2001, Chapters 2 - 5, 12 - 15
Fountain, Dan, Let’s Build Our Lives, Brunswick, GA: MAP International, 1990
Fountain, Dan, Health, the Bible, and the Church, Wheaton, IL: Billy Graham Center, 1989
Huntington, Samuel & Lawrence Harrison, Culture Maters: How Values Shape Human Progress, New York: Basic Books, 2000, Chapters 1, 4, 6, 7, 8
Selected articles

ASSIGNMENTS:

1. An annotated bibliography inclusive of your 1300 pages of required reading.

2. An 800 word written evaluation of Let’s Build Our Lives in terms of content and the methods of motivating community action in health.
3. A 1000 word comparison of the Life in Abundance program in Addis Ababa with the H.E.L.P. integrated development program in Nepal.
4. An 800 word description of the process of motivating urban community leaders to improve health conditions in their community.
5. A 2500 word research paper integrating content and concepts from class lectures and reading with insights gained at the Global Missions Health Conference.

PREREQUISITES: Be a health or community development professional either in training or in service.

RELATIONSHIP TO CURRICULUM: Elective.

FINAL EXAM: Two in-class quizzes only.

Last Date Edited: June 5, 2006