May 12, 2020
Contact: Brian Consiglio, 573-882-9144, consigliob@missouri.edu
Enid Schatz, professor and chair of the Department of Public Health.
While the coronavirus pandemic is mainly a public health crisis, it has affected nearly every aspect of society. In response, the MU Department of Public Health, jointly administered by the MU School of Health Professions and the MU College of Veterinary Medicine, has created a new online class for the upcoming summer, Interdisciplinary perspectives on COVID-19: The effect of epidemics on our health and social worlds.
The eight week course is open to all MU and UM System students. The course will be taught by faculty from all of MU’s academic schools and colleges, including the School of Medicine; Sinclair School of Nursing; Trulaske College of Business; Missouri School of Journalism; College of Engineering; College of Education; College of Veterinary Medicine; College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources; College of Arts and Science; School of Health Professions; College of Human Environmental Sciences; and the School of Law.
“It’s not often we have a chance to respond to something in the moment as it is unfolding,” said Enid Schatz, Department of Public Health chair and organizer of the new course. “This is an opportunity to not only showcase the diverse wealth of knowledge and expertise from faculty at Missouri’s flagship institution, but also to remind students that hearing multidisciplinary perspectives enriches learning more than just looking at a problem from one point of view.”
The course will cover the impact of the pandemic on areas such as the hospitality and travel industry, agriculture, schools, incarceration, homelessness, domestic violence, and the health care workforce. Additional topics will include humanities, social science, legal, medical and public health perspectives on the impacts of COVID-19 on people’s lives.
“A crisis like this really impacts all of our social worlds,” Schatz said. “For example, the meat packing industry has been disrupted, which in turn impacts the supply chain to grocery stores, which in turn might impact consumer purchasing decisions and the availability of certain goods. This is an issue that impacts so many different factors in our lives; being able to talk about it with experts from different fields can help us make sense of the environment we are in and what our place in it is.”
Students interested in the course can search for P_HLTH 4001-03/7001-03 Interdisciplinary perspectives on COVID19: The effect of epidemics on our health and social worlds in myZou or contact mubphprogram@health.missouri.edu to get more information.
