HLTH200 Introduction to Women's Health Issues

Department of Kinesiology and Sport Studies: Health

I. Course Number and Title
HLTH200 Introduction to Women's Health Issues
II. Number of Credits
3 credits
III. Number of Instructional Minutes
IV. Prerequisites
V. Other Pertinent Information

This course meets the General Education requirement for Critical Thinking
This course meets the General Education requirement for Diversity.

VI. Catalog Course Description
This course is an introduction to the personal and social concerns of women's past and present health trends. Emphasis will be placed on the historical perspective of women's health, including an exploration of psychological, physiological, and social barriers to women's health. The holistic model of wellness will be examined.
VII. Required Course Content and Direction
  1. Course Learning Goals

    Students will:

    1. identify the major physical, mental, social, and emotional issues affecting women's health in the past and present and forecast future implications [Critical Thinking];
    2. investigate, through research, major health problems of women that relate to the leading causes of death for women in various phases of the life cycle;
    3. summarize and critique various viewpoints and theories of major health practitioners in the woman's health field [Diversity];
    4. discuss facets of women's health, such as feminism, body image, drug abuse, violence against women, childbearing, disease, midlife and elderly health issues [Diversity]; and
    5. analyze and interpret historical aspects of the women's health movement, and current literature on woman's health issues, including psychological, physiological, and spiritual barriers that have and often still affect woman's health.
  2. Planned Sequence of Topics and/or Learning Activities

    Course Outline:

    1. Feminism and the Women's Health Movement
      1. A Woman's Creed
      2. Beyond Gender Equality
      3. Young Feminism Reflections
      4. Brief History of Medicine
      5. Women's Health Movement
      6. Title IX and Recent Achievements
    2. Women's Health Status
      1. Factors Influencing Women's Health
      2. Health, Health Care, and Women of Color
      3. Health Care Reform
      4. Welfare and Women's Lives
    3. Science and Women's Health
      1. Clinical Research
    4. Body Image
      1. Beauty Myth
      2. Thinness: A Cultural Obsession
      3. Diet
      4. Eating Disorders
    5. Women and Drug Abuse
      1. Alcoholism
      2. Smoking
      3. Prozac and Depression
    6. Violence against Women
      1. Violence Against Women
      2. Wife Battering
      3. Domestic Violence
    7. Women's Sexual Health
      1. Eroticism
      2. Abstinence and Sexual Expression
      3. Emergency Contraceptive Pills
      4. Un-pregnancy Pill
      5. Abortion
      6. STD's and Other Epidemics
    8. Childbearing
      1. Reducing Deaths from Pregnancy and Childbirth
      2. Fetal Rights
      3. Pharmaceuticals and Myths
    9. The Politics of Disease
      1. Gender, Women, AIDS, and the Law
      2. Breast Cancer
      3. Menstruation and Men
    10. Midlife Health Issues
      1. Politics of Menopause and HRT
      2. Menopause and Hormone Therapy
      3. Women and Care Giving
  3. Assessment Methods for Course Learning Goals

    Students will be assessed on the following:

    1. Writing assignment and oral presentation
    2. Quizzes and examinations
    3. Class participation
    4. Other projects, as specified in individual instructor's class format
      1. Essay question where the student must explain, following specific guidelines, how by implementing the components of exercise and diet that they have been exposed to during this course, they plan to change some of their habits to live a healthier life [Critical Thinking and Problem Solving].
      2. Essay question where the student will be able to discuss, explain, and use research to understand the inequalities that exist, and the ways our society is/is not taking steps to deal with these inequalities.

    The required textbook is selected by the full-time faculty teaching the course. Details are provided in the course syllabus, which is created by the instructor and distributed to each student upon enrollment and attendance in class.
