BIO 227 Pandemics and Public Health

Fall/Spring

This course will examine the impact on society of pandemic diseases through history, and how improvements in public health can dictate the response to a disease outbreak. We will specifically focus on ten major infectious disease outbreaks over the past two millennia. With each of them we will discuss the clinical aspects of the disease, the historical and economic impact of the outbreak, and new innovations that arose because of them. We will also consider the role of some of these disease agents in bioterrorism, and how society can protect itself from the dangers of a terrorist event.

3 credit hours