We are excited to announce a new class being taught Dr. Shakira Suglia; Stress and Health which will be launching in the Fall of 2016 and is part of the Social Determinants of Health MPH certificate program.
This course will provide an introduction to the existing research on stress and health with a specific emphasis on the conceptualization of stress and issues related to the measurement of stress for epidemiological studies. Through readings and group discussions we will cover issues related to the design of epidemiological studies that focus on different stress constructs (i.e., stressful experiences, perceptions of stress, biological responses to stress). In addition the course will review the stress and health literature as it pertains to group differences (i.e, race, sex), lifecourse exposure (i.e., sensitive periods, accumulation of stress) and potential protective factors.
The course will provide students with the opportunity to apply epidemiological principles and methods and develop basic tools necessary to critically evaluate the existing stress and health literature.
The course learning objectives are that students will be able to:
- Define the construct of stress and its domains
- Identify methodological challenges in measuring stress in epidemiological studies
- Describe mechanisms hypothesized to explain the stress and health association
- Describe approaches to studying stress and health across the lifecourse
- Identify sources of heterogeneity (i.e., race, sex) that shape exposure to stress and modify the impact of stress on health
- Critically read and interpret the literature on stress and health
