Introduction

Please click here to see Health and Behavioral Sciences department information.

The undergraduate minor in Public Health is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of the social, cultural, and biological dimensions of health. The minor curriculum provides students with the intellectual and methodological tools needed to understand the joint bio-cultural determinants and contexts of health, health care and public health. 

These program requirements are subject to periodic revision by the academic department, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences reserves the right to make exceptions and substitutions as judged necessary in individual cases. Therefore, the College strongly urges students to consult regularly with their major, minor and CLAS advisors to confirm the best plans of study before finalizing them.

Program Delivery

• This is an on-campus program.

Declaring This Minor

• Please see your advisor.
• Click here to go to information about declaring a major/minor.

General Requirements

Students must satisfy all requirements as outlined below and by the department offering the minor. 

• Click here for information about Academic Policies

Program Requirements

1. Students must complete a minimum of 24 credit hours from the approved courses.
2. Students must complete a minimum of 12 upper-division (3000-level and above) PBHL credit hours from the approved courses.
3. Students must earn a minimum grade of C- (1.7) in all courses that apply to the minor and must achieve a minimum cumulative minor GPA of 2.0. Courses taken using P+/P/F or S/U grading cannot apply to minor requirements.
4. Students must complete a minimum of 12 PBHL credit hours with CU Denver faculty from the approved courses.

Program Restrictions, Allowances and Recommendations

1. No more than six credit hours may be counted toward a major or minor in another department and counted toward the minor in Public Health.
2. Due to substantial overlap in coursework, students who complete the major in Public Health cannot also be awarded the minor in Public Health.
3. Students must complete a minimum of 12 upper-division level credit hours with CU Denver faculty.

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Complete the following program requirements:
Complete the following General Public Health courses:		8
PBHL 2001	Introduction to Public Health
PBHL 3001	Introduction to Epidemiology
Complete a minimum of two of the following Public Health Focused courses: 1		6
PBHL 3020	Introduction to Environmental Health
PBHL 3030	Health Policy
PBHL 3070	Perspectives in Global Health
PBHL 4040	Social Determinants of Health
Complete one of the following Biological Background lab courses:		4
ANTH 1303	Introduction to Biological Anthropology
BIOL 1550	Basic Biology: Ecology and the Diversity of Life
BIOL 1560	Basic Biology: From Cells to Organisms
BIOL 2010 & BIOL 2011	Organisms to Ecosystems (Gen Bio) and Organisms to Ecosystems Lab (Gen Bio)
or BIOL 2030 & BIOL 2031	Honors Organisms to Ecosystems (Gen Bio) and Honors Organisms to Ecosystems Lab (Gen Bio)
BIOL 2020 & BIOL 2021	Molecules to Cells (Gen Bio) and Molecules to Cells Lab (Gen Bio)
or BIOL 2040 & BIOL 2041	Honors Molecules to Cells (Gen Bio) and Honors Molecules to Cells Lab (Gen Bio)
Complete two of the following elective courses:		6
ANTH 4010	Medical Anthropology: Global Health
ANTH 4080	Global Health Practice
ANTH 4290	Anthropology and Public Health
ANTH 4600	Medical Anthropology
COMM 4500	Health Communication
COMM 4525	Health Communication and Community
COMM 4550	Rhetorics of Medicine & Health
COMM 4575	Designing Health Messages
COMM 4620	Health Risk Communication
ECON 4660	Health Economics.
ENVS 1342	Environment, Society and Sustainability
ETST 3002	Ethnicity, Health and Social Justice
GEOG 3501	Geography of Health
GEOG 4230	Hazard Mitigation and Vulnerability Assessment
GEOG 4235	GIS Applications in the Health Sciences
HEHM 3100	Foundations of Health Humanities
HEHM 3570	Death & Dying: Social & Medical Perspectives
HIST 4345	Gender, Science, and Medicine: 1600 to the Present
PBHL 2052	Global Demography and Health
PBHL 3002	Ethnicity, Health and Social Justice
PBHL 3010	Human Sexuality and Public Health
PBHL 3021	Fundamentals of Health Promotion
PBHL 3031	Health, Human Biology and Behavior
PBHL 3041	Health, Culture and Society
PBHL 3050	Decision Making
PBHL 3051	Mental Illness and Society
PBHL 3071	Global Topics In Sexual and Reproductive Health
PBHL 3081	Health in the City: Urban Health
PBHL 3091	Live Long and Prosper: Public Health & Aging
PBHL 3200	Nations and Migrations
PBHL 3440	Medical Sociology
PBHL 3939	Internship
PBHL 3999	Special Topics in Public Health
PBHL 4020	Global Health: Comparative Public Health Systems
PBHL 4021	Community Health Assessment
PBHL 4031	Ethnographic Research In Public Health
PBHL 4070	Health Disparities
PBHL/ANTH 4080	Global Health Practice
PBHL/ANTH 4090	Psychedelic Anthropology
PBHL 4110	Public Health Perspectives On Family Violence
PBHL 4200	The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic
PBHL 4620	Health Risk Communication
PBHL 4840	Independent Study
PBHL 4880	Directed Research
PBHL 4995	Global Study Topics
PBHL 4999	Topics in Public Health
PHIL 4242	Medicine, Health Care, and Justice: Bioethics
PSCI 4215	Women's Rights, Human Rights: Global Perspectives
PSCI 4330	U.S. Health Policy
PSYC 3262	Health Psychology
PSYC 3265	Drugs, Brain and Behavior
PSYC 3305	Psychopathology
PSYC 3822	Aging, Brain and Behavior
SOCY 3440	Medical Sociology
SOCY 3570	Death & Dying: Social & Medical Perspectives
SOCY 4110	Sociology of Health Care
SOCY 4220	Population Change and Analysis
Total Hours		24

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Students may elect to take all four of these courses in lieu of taking two elective courses listed below.

To learn more about the Student Learning Outcomes for this program, please visit our website.