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Lasell University
Lasell University

Public and Community Health

Major

What You'll Learn
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The Public and Community Health degree provides provide you with the necessary skills and training to run programs and create information pertaining to issues related to healthcare and that promote a healthy community. In the Public and Community Health major, you will follow a multidisciplinary approach to study of public health with courses in the natural sciences, social sciences, mathematics, and the humanities.

After completing this degree, you will be prepared to pursue a public health career in disease prevention, health promotion, and the overall improvement of community well-being. Graduates can pursue roles in government agencies, non-profit organizations, healthcare institutions, research organizations, and international health agencies. Job titles include epidemiologist, health educator, environmental health specialist, and public health policy analyst.

Program Features

  • Coursework focuses on the use of laboratories and connected learning to reinforce theory and concepts learned in the classroom.

  • Students will also be eligible to apply for the Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) certification that is supported by the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing.

What You'll Learn

From your first day, you’ll take courses in your major and advance towards graduation with a yearly plan. Not sure what classes to take? We’ll help you create the perfect plan. 

Courses and Sample 4-Year Plan

This example four-year plan is provided as a broad framework that you can follow in order to complete your degree within four years. Be sure to always consult your academic advisor before registering for classes.

WRT101
Writing I

In this course, students gain understanding of and confidence in strategies for effective writing by composing and reading in a variety of genres. The course emphasizes writing as a process and focuses on the rhetorical choices writers make. Students engage critically with sources by examining how genre, context, purpose, credibility, and bias work together to create meaning and impact audiences. Students who choose to take Writing I Workshop are provided with time during class to work on their writing while the instructor and a writing tutor are present to provide assistance. Students must earn a “C” or higher in order to pass this course

The First Year Seminar (FYS) is part of the Core Curriculum and a requirement for all incoming first year students and transfer students with fewer than 15 credits. The First Year Seminar is a theme-based inquiry course that engages students in a specific area of interest while providing support for a smooth transition into the Lasell University community and the Connected Learning philosophy. Through studying an academic topic, students develop and apply core intellectual skills and receive an introduction to the core knowledge perspectives. At the same time, students connect to the experiences and people that make up the Lasell University Community. Course outcomes are accomplished through engaging activities including reading, writing, class discussions, presentations, team projects, field trips, and exploration of campus resources. Civic engagement and service-learning activities are often part of this course as is participation in the Connected Learning Symposium. Through the seminar, students develop close ties with faculty and peer mentors who serve as advocates for first year students' academic success. Past course titles have included: The Immigrant Experience, Fashion & Film of the 20th Century, The Social History of Rock & Roll, Exploring Cultures & Languages, The Spark of Creativity, Women and Sports, and Latin America: Food And Traditions. This requirement may be fulfilled by taking either FYS103 or HON101 (for students enrolled in the Honors Program).

This lecture and laboratory course is the second semester of a year-long introductory biology sequence which explores the scientific study of life. Topics include introductions to Darwinian evolution, principles of inheritance, evolution & immunity, and a survey of human body systems & homeostatic mechanisms. The laboratory provides an environment for active learning to support understanding of concepts presented in the course. Prerequisite: BIO101 with a C or better. Corequisite: BIO102L.

This course encourages an examination of one’s own value system, motivations and interests in relation to the wish to pursue a career working with people. Students are introduced to the history and development of the field: the concept of the social welfare system; resources and services offered by a range of community agencies; a model to understand social and psychological problems; and interventions to address social needs interventions range from individual case management and counseling to community organizing and planning. The course highlights a social justice basis for human service work. A 10-hour service learning requirement enables students to examine their interests and apply the concepts learned in class.

This course is a continuation of Writing I and focuses on research and public writing. Theme-based courses provide students with lenses to explore issues of interest and develop their reading, research, and writing skills. Students work with a topic of their choice, broadly based on the course theme. Assignments build upon each other, lead up to a researched position paper, and culminate in a public piece. Students who choose to take Writing II Workshop are provided with time during class to work on their writing while the instructor and a writing tutor are present to provide assistance. Students must earn a grade of “C” or higher in order to pass this course. Prerequisite: WRT 101

Equity & Intersectionality(KP)

This course will serve as an introduction to the discipline and profession of health education for disease prevention and health promotion. Students will examine the concepts of health & wellness, the determinants of health behavior, national health status, the history of health education and health promotion. Students will be provided with the necessary skills for the development, delivery, and evaluation of health programs to targeted populations.

EXSC107
Healthy Lifestyles and Human Behavior

This course focuses on evaluating and implementing healthy lifestyles and human behavior for longevity of lifespan from adolescence through adult development. Focus will be placed upon cultivating a holistic approach to health and wellness that is rooted within strategies for implementing healthy lifestyle changes, as well as "living through prevention": a description relating to methods of preventing long term disease and disability.

In this course, students learn to think like psychologists as they study classic and contemporary topics in human behavior, feeling, and thought. Students learn to apply psychological perspectives of thought, including biological, cognitive, sociocultural, humanistic, psychodynamic, and behaviorist, to better understand the human experience. Students will learn to use these perspectives to explore how individual behavior is influenced by and influences one’s biology, family, community and society. Topics may include human development, personality, psychopathology, human relationships, language, memory, perceptual processes, and intelligence, among others.

This course introduces students to interviewing skills used by counselors and case managers and to the types of counselor responses that can be effective in human services work. Students learn to assess clients and interventions at the micro, meso and macro levels and explore issues of professional ethics and values. Students also examine cultural contexts as they impact the client, counselor, and client-counselor relationship. Some of the contexts may include race, class, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, and immigration status. The course relies heavily on in-class exercises. Prerequisites: PSYC 101, HS 101 with a C or better.

This Knowledge Perspective course will provide students with the opportunity to interpret and analyze the complex interrelationships and inequities in human societies in a global historical context. Emphasizing the interrelatedness and mutuality of influence between East and West, we examine questions of exclusiveness, intolerance, and cooperation. Prerequisite: ENG101 with a C or better

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

This is an introductory course in descriptive and inferential statistics. Topics include: data analysis, and graphical methods of describing data, measures of central tendency and variability, probability, the normal distribution, sampling distributions, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, correlation, and regression analysis. Prerequisites: MATH 106 with a grade of C or better or demonstrated competency through placement testing and ENG 102.

In this project-based course, students explore a social or intellectual problem using at least two knowledge perspectives. Faculty and students follow a collaborative process of exploration, discussion, and problem solving that integrates knowledge perspectives and core intellectual skills.

The course examines the relationship between drugs and behavior, including evidence about the effects of drugs on the brain. Several classes of drugs, including chemically or psychologically addictive substances, psychoactive and therapeutic agents, as well as recreational drugs, are examined. Drug use is related to psychological variables such as personality structure and interpersonal relationships, and theories of addictive processes and factors influencing drug use are examined, as are treatment strategies. Prerequisite: PSYC 101.

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

001
KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

This course is designed to introduce factual information about gender identity and gender role theories, sexual preference and sexual orientation, and psychosexual development. The course examines issues related to research on human sexuality and behavior, as well as sexual education, sexual disorders, and societal impacts on sexuality. Students are challenged to think critically about many issues surrounding human sexuality and all of its manifestations. Prerequisite: PSYC 101.

This course will address the interaction between the lives we lead and the application of traditional (and some nontraditional) ethical theories and principles to important decision points in our lives. Students will take on real-life ethical problems and dilemmas for each class; each student will be responsible for presenting a number of issues, as well as for guiding the discussion of those issues in class. The problems we address will largely span a lifetime of experiences and concerns. Students will also write several papers that evaluate formal arguments, using standard tools of critical thinking and philosophy. The course is discussion based, so a willingness to read carefully, to think critically, and to engage in classroom presentations and discussions is essential. Prerequisite: Junior standing, MDSC203 & ENG102.

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

Wellness is seen as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.”* This course explores the social dimension to wellness (or health and illness). Both health and illness vary across times and cultures – and are related to how we define “normal”.? Wellness is also closely related to our position in society; social identities such as socio-economic status, race and ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation impact our life chances, lifestyles, access to care, and attitudes towards health and illness. In other words, this course approaches health and illness from a sociological (rather than philosophical or ethical) perspective.??*?Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, 19-22 June, 1946; signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and entered into force on 7 April 1948. The definition has not been amended since 1948.

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

This course introduces and provides a platform for application of the concepts and methods of population-based epidemiology. As students study the patterns and determinants of disease in different populations, they will address topics such as the behavior of disease, measurement of disease frequency, uses of statistical methods to describe the health of populations, study design in epidemiology, bias in disease investigation, and associations between risk factors & disease outcomes. Pre-requisite: MATH208 (with C or better)

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

COM212
Intercultural Communication

This course examines communication issues that arise from contact between people from different cultural backgrounds in everyday life, social encounters, and business transactions. Interdisciplinary approaches are applied to the study of how verbal and nonverbal presentation, ethnic, gender, and cultural differences affect communication. The course provides exercises in participation, analysis, and criticism of interethnic and interracial communications in small group settings. Students examine factors of international communication such as the cultural, economic, political, and social influences and the role of communication in affecting social change in a wide variety of cultures and countries. Prerequisite: COM101 or SOC101 or PSYC101

This is an off-campus experience in a hospital, clinic, corporate, university or commercial setting, as appropriate. Concepts, theories, and practices learned in the classroom are applied in a supervised setting. Students must successfully complete at least 200 hours of field experience in addition to written assignments. Prerequisites: BIO 211, BIO 340 and Permission of Program Chair.

This course covers research concepts in the healthcare and fitness industry including the logic of experimental and correlational designs, issues of control, sampling, measurement of variables, ethical issues in research, use of online professional search procedures, and writing in APA style. Students engage in various aspects of the research process culminating in a research paper on a discipline specific topic. Prerequisite: MATH 208

In this course, students study individuals and their interactions within group settings as they affect efficiencies in diverse business organizations. Group dynamics and intergroup dynamics are emphasized in relation to productivity and work satisfaction along with the examination of specific aspects of organizations that influence behavior on a global scale. Areas covered include structure, leadership, and change as they affect a multitude of cultures. Teaching modalities include case studies and role-playing. This is a writing intensive course.

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

The capstone course prepares students to engage in research at the graduate level and to create an opportunity for students to apply various concepts and theories attained throughout the curriculum. The content of this course focuses on opportunities for undergraduate research. Students will develop an original research question, with focus on methodology, data collection and statistical analysis. Prerequisite: BIO 340 with a C or better.

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

KP (Knowledge Perspective) Course

This example four-year plan is provided as a broad framework that you can follow in order to complete your degree within four years. Be sure to always consult your academic advisor before registering for classes.

4-Year Plan
Student Profile
Trevor Lopinsky with a book

"The Forensic Science program has given me so much hands-on knowledge. I feel confident about getting a job."

Trevor Lopinsky '24

Forensic Science

Read more about Trevor
Trevor Lopinsky with a book

Learning Outcomes

The following goals and learning outcomes delineate what we strive for students to achieve upon completing the major program of study in Public and Community Health.

  • Demonstrate a comprehensive level of knowledge in the concepts of public health.
  • Demonstrate a strong understanding of how public health applies to individuals, communities, and society overall.
  • Demonstrate the ability to communicate health information to a diverse audience.
  • Demonstrate the ability to apply qualitative and quantitative reasoning skills.

For a complete list of courses and learning outcomes, view the Academic Catalog

Career Outlook

Students pursue careers in community health, healthcare management, public health, and more.

Our students have gone on to have careers in:

  • Community Health Worker
  • Public Health Professional
  • Healthcare Management

Beyond the Classroom
VR/AR Lab

Lasell's new virtual reality lab enhances classroom experience by with cutting edge virtual reality/artificial intelligence technology.

Pathway to Medical School


Lasell has partnered with St. George’s University in Grenada (SGU) to offer undergraduate students a direct pathway into medical school.

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