PBHLTH 155B
Women's Global Health and Empowerment
The course will provide core knowledge and skills from several disciplines on how to improve women's health and well-being globally. It aims to expand students’ understanding of the interconnected factors that influence women’s health and empowerment - including foundations of sexual and reproductive health, economic development, political frameworks and global reproductive rights, demographic and social changes, basic principles of empowerment theory, educational opportunities, and advances in gender equality. The sessions follow a life course framework, and will be taught in a seminar style with plenty of opportunities for group discussions and case studies.
Topics
- 1. Identify and analyze gender inequities in health care needs and access to care. 2. Explain the ways in which social, economic, and cultural factors can both promote and impede women’s and girls’ health. 3. Examine how girls’ education contributes to individual, community, and national development. 4. Critically examine how gender and women’s empowerment is addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals and other development frameworks. 5. Evaluate case studies of interventions designed to improve women’s health and empowerment in differing cultural and national contexts and recommend improvements. 6. Compare macro level political, institutional, and structural factors that differentially influence men’s and women’s health and empowerment in relation to local, cultural, and regional contexts. 7. Identify the major institutions and non-governmental organizations that influence women’s health and empowerment and suitable approaches for implementing interventions to ensure gender equity. 8. Assess the impact of women’s health on advances in other sectors including child health, education, economic development, and social stability. 9. Analyze case studies applying the relevant historical context of politics, policies, and laws related to women’s health and human rights. 10. Analyze the contrasting perspectives and changing paradigms among epidemiologists, public health experts, demographers, economists, human rights activists and development specialists related to women’s health and empowerment. 11. Explain the major theories of gender, sexuality and power. 12. Demonstrate foundational knowledge of female anatomy, physiology and health conditions when discussing broader issues of women’s health and empowerment.
Official catalogue course objectives and student learning outcomes
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027