Course Description
486 Medical Geography (3) (Normally offered every other semester) Prerequisite: A lower division course in geography and completion of the lower division writing requirement. Examination of the spatial distribution of human diseases at the world, regional, and local scales. Special emphasis on understanding the physical and cultural factors associated with patterns of disease. * Facility with computing software, especially geographic information systems is helpful.
The student will be introduced to the various conceptual and practical concerns that figure prominently in Medical and Health Geography.
The spatial dynamics of disease, health and health care provision figure prominently among the topics. Students will also be introduced to spatial analytical and statistical tools used by medical geographers as well as some GIS techniques. The course will be conducted in both seminar and lab settings.
Required Materials
Some additional materials you might consider include:
In addition, there will be occasionally posted readings from articles, newspapers or websites. Check the course schedule for links to additional material.
- GIS and Public Health by McLafferty and Cromley
- GIS for Health Organizations (ESRI PRESS)
- GIS Tutorial for Health (ESRI Press)
- Cartographies of Disease (ESRI Press)
Learning Modules
This course will feature a series of computer based assignments or labs. These labs are designed to introduce the student to various methods and practices commonly used by medical geographers. The purpose is to expose students to some tools of medical geography. Typically the students will complete a practice lab, following the lead of the instructor and with the help of classmates on a practice dataset during class time. Later students will replicate the strategy with a second data set that is either collected by the student or provided by the instructor. Lab results are generally due one week after they are assigned.
Quizzes
During the semester, a number of quizzes may be administered on-line or in class. They may or may not be announced. These quizzes are intended to assess student comprehension of assigned texts, maps or other information. Quizzes are also designed to keep the student progressing in a timely fashion through the learning modules or readings, and ensure regular interaction with the material. Quizzes may also be a component of the semester evaluation. In the case that no semester quizzes are assigned, the points (percentages) will be reassigned to other assignments, always subject to class approval.
Attendance and Classroom Obligations
Participation in classroom discussions will count toward the calculation of your final grade. If you cannot attend regularly, you will not earn a high participation grade. If your attendance is regular, but you do not participate in the class discussions, you will not earn a high participation grade.
Students with Disabilities
Students with disabilities must register with the Center on Disabilities and complete a services agreement each semester. Staff within the Center will verify the existence of a disability based on the documentation provided and approve accommodations. Students who are approved for testing taking accommodations must provide a proctor form to their faculty member signed by a counselor in the Center on Disabilities prior to making testing arrangements. The Center on Disabilities is located in Bayramian Hall, room 110. Staff can be reached at (818) 677-2684.
If you have a disability, please make Dr. Graves aware of it at the beginning of the semester. I am eager to help make arrangements to accommodate any student with differential learning needs.
Other campus-wide disclosures are available at: http://www.csun.edu/a&r/disclosures/disclosures.html
Course Schedule
The course schedule is posted on line in Moodle. It is subject to occasional, student-approved updates and changes.
There are specific university deadlines for students wishing to add or drop courses:http://www.csun.edu/anr/soc/calendar.html
Annoucements about changes in the schedule may be made in class and every effort will be made to post them on the course Moodle site.
Attendance
Attendance is a key component of good grades. I expect students to attend all classes and to complete each assignment on time. You owe it to yourself, to whomever is paying for your education and the taxpayers who support your education. Students who fail to maintain regular attendance and study habits should not take this course.
If you have medical or personal issues that demand your absence, please contact Dr. Graves immediately. If a student must miss an extended period of time, he/she should arrange to drop the course or make special arrangements with Dr. Graves. Do not expect leniency in matters of attendance if you fail to notify me of problems late in the semester.
Other Obligations
There is a mandatory un-graded course contract that constitutes the first assignment of the course.
Evaluation
Students will be evaluated by a variety of evaluation tools, including multiple choice quizzes, writing assignments, on-line exercises, etc. Students will be evaluated on their ability to demonstrate basic knowledge/comprehension of the subject matter as well as the ability to apply critical thinking skills to the subject matter, by evaluating issues, applying knowledge acquired in novel situations, synthesizing multiple points, issues and knowledge. Listed on the following pages are the intended learning outcomes for this course and the evaluation and assessment tools used in the class to determine your success
Intended Outcomes
In accordance with best teaching practices, intended outcomes for this course are made transparent to students at the beginning of the semester. Students should be able to demonstrate at least basic competency with knowledge and skill sets listed below in order to earn a passing grade in this course. The assessment and evaluation tools used during the semester, designed to measure your success in acquiring these knowledge and skill sets are listed below each learning outcome below.
Goal A: Building a Knowledge Base
Students in this course will identify and define basic vocabulary and concepts in medical and health geography.
Students will be able to define and explain key terms such as: incidence, prevalence, epidemic, pandemic, endemic, mortality,
Assessment/Evaluation tool: quizzes, short expository assignments.
Goal B: Acquiring Knowledge
Students will develop skills for acquiring new knowledge in order to grow their knowledge base as they take steps toward becoming life-long learners.
Students will demonstrate their ability to find and interpret primary data available from government and/or business sources.
Assessment/Evaluation tool: quizzes, lab assignments.
Students will demonstrate their ability to formulate a research question, a hypothesis regarding the research questions and a method of testing the hypothesis.
Assessment/Evaluation tool: semester project
Students will evaluate, compare and discuss strengths and weaknesses and value of various methodologies available to disciplinary practitioners.
Assessment/Evaluation tool: lab assignments.
Goal C: Problem Solving Skills
Students will demonstrate progress in their development of skill necessary to solve problems and answer research questions. Students will analyze non-textual meaning in maps, graphics, etc.
Students will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of hypotheses and research designs.
Assessment/Evaluation tool: lab assignments.
Students will engage a variety of basic research strategies and problem solving tools used by disciplinary practitioners.
Assessment/Evaluation tool: lab assignments, semester project.
Goal D: Communicating Knowledge
Students in this course will be able to communicate ideas effectively. They will demonstrate basic communicative competency with textual, cartographic, graphic and numeric information.
Students will effectively communicate ideas and opinions using textual communication.
Assessment/Evaluation tool: lab assignments, semester project.
Students will construct one or more legible maps or other graphic communicative devices.
Assessment/Evaluation tool: lab assignments, semester project.
Students will generate one or more statistical measure and use it to construct or explain at least one map and one other graphic device.
Assessment/Evaluation tool: lab assignments, semester project.
Evaluation
Grades will be determined by your performance on the various assignments and tests as well as your attendance/participation where appropriate.
Grading Regime*
Participation and miscellaneous assignments will count for 10 percent of your total grade.
Fifteen weekly reading quizzes will count for 30 percent of your total grade, unless the class earns the right to stop taking them; whereupon the value of these quizzes will be redistributed to the labs and/or semester project with class approval.
Labs and writing assignments will count for 60 percent of your total grade, perhaps more if the quizzes are discontinued during the semester.
* These percentages are subject to class approved modification as conditions warrant.
Tentative Grade Scale
A= (90-100%)
B = (80-89%)
C = (70-79%)
D = (60-69%)
F = (59% or less)
