Niyat Gegziahber Individual Major Proposal With this major, I plan to investigate the political, social, and cultural factors that help shape health care systems and health care policies in the United States and abroad. Specifically, this major will focus on studying various factors that contribute to the health care inequalities. I am especially interested in studying population health, health care policies, infectious diseases and health care management. To understand how to properly contribute to health-care systems as well as the depth of inequalities that exist within health care systems, I will need to take classes that explain how diseases are spread and controlled, how governmental policies affect health care systems, and the economic/social rationale for health care regulations domestic and abroad. I will need to develop a wide variety of important skills such as critical thinking, analytical, and cross-cultural to become an effective public-health official. I am interested in studying the short-term and long-term effects of health disparities in communities of disadvantaged populations and important factors that lead to the health policies. I plan to study aspects of health disparities in infectious diseases and population health both in the United States and other countries. I am also particularly interested in how data analysis can shape health care policies especially in the United States. The following questions will serve as a guide while studying my intended topic: What are the impediments and available solutions to allow for effective access to healthcare in the developing world? What type of factors shape health care policies and to what extent do those factors impact health care policies domestically and abroad? What kind of actions allow for more effective culturally appropriate and culturally sensitive community health policies and practices to be constructed? Goals: 1. Understand the factors behind systemic health care inequities both in the developed and developing world. Courses in Social Work, Sociology/Anthropology, and Politics will help me in understanding the factors and how they lead to health care disparities. 2. Utilize the information that I gain from class and experiential opportunities to learn the methodological and practical tools required to frame and carry out public health research.
3. Take an in-depth look and analyze the mechanisms of disease prevention and management in developing areas of the world as well as minority communities in developed nations and ways to improve the quality of life for disadvantaged people. In addition, I hope to assess the links between government practices to local practices within various communities. Core Courses: Biological Underpinnings and Quantitative Analysis STAT 212 Statistics for Science (Completed) ~This course teaches how to create a hypothesis, analyze and model data which are critical skills for research in the field of public health. This course provides experience, knowledge, and essential skillsets in collecting and analyzing data that is necessary in the field of public health. SOAN 373 Ethnographic Research Methods (Spring, 2018) ~This course will teach me how to design and conduct qualitative research under the umbrella of sociological and anthropological ethnography. I will able to analyze my own research to get critical experience in interpretation and data analysis. ID 150 Explorations in Science (Completed) ~ This course allowed me to explore the relationships between microorganisms and public health. Topics such as antibiotic resistance and mechanisms of cells allowed me to have a foundational background in biology that I could apply the field of public health. BIO 233 Microbiology (completed) ~This course focuses on various aspects of micro-organisms and it allows me to gain insight on how diseases are spread, and how they can be prevented from spreading. This course is especially helpful for work in the communicable diseases aspect of public health. Study Abroad Course: Bio in South India Course #1 (Fall, 2017) ~This course will be completed as part of a study abroad program in South India in the fall of 2017 and I will be out in the field collecting and analyzing data related to the field of public health. e.g., details of assessing and tracking vector borne diseases.
Access to and use of healthcare providers Study Abroad Course: Bio in South India Course #2 (Fall, 2017) ~ This course will be completed as part of a study abroad program in South India in the fall of 2017 and I will be out in the field collecting and analyzing data related to the field of public health. Example: Community Health approaches IS 392 Independent Study (Senior Project) (Spring, 2018) ~This course will allow me to analyze data to provide a comprehensive capstone for my independent major. I will use the research completed during the Biology in South India program focused on my project (a third IS) to use as a foundation for this capstone project. For example, I may compare what I learned about health care for young adults in Honduras with similar issues in India and the United States. SOAN 267 Medical Anthropology (Spring, 2018) ~This course is important to take to be able to understand health care inequities that exist in various societies. I will be able to examine the state of health care in various countries by investigating different cultures. I will be able to better understand the role of health, health care providers, meaning of wellness in communities around the world People, social systems, and inequities SOAN 121 Introduction to Sociology (Completed) ~This allows me to understand the bureaucracies, societal structures, and structural inequalities that affect and impact health-care policies. It s important to understand the fundamental structures of societies to see how inequalities are formed into the health care industry. PSCI 252 Politics and Development (Completed) ~I can compare the various nations globally and investigate factors that make certain nations developed and others developing. In addition, I investigate the policies of various nations and how they impact the health care delivery within those countries. PSYCH 241 Developmental Psychology (Completed)
~This course focuses on the development of people in all stages. This relates to the field of public health as it gives a new perspective in understanding how people at different states of life can be affected by and respond to public health issues. Supplemental Courses: SPAN 273 Heritage/Hispanic US (Completed) ~This course has necessary cultural contexts of the Latino population in the United States to be more culturally aware and sensitive when dealing with various ethnic groups in the field of public health. This will expand my cross-cultural skills and allow me to be a better professional in the field of public health. Rationale for the Major Trained public health professionals are necessary in this world of widespread health inequities to identify workable solutions in the context of individual communities, their resources, health needs and culture. Many health disparities occur daily and solutions are needed to decrease the health care inequities. Public health is a vast field and studying it as an individual major will help me tackle aspects of the field such as vast inequality in access to healthcare and the formation of health care regulations. Empowering disadvantaged communities to have better access to health care, and reducing the increasingly widespread health care inequalities in both developed and developing countries are goals I aspire to. Majors close to the arena of public health are not offered at St. Olaf College and undergraduate institutions rarely offer public health majors. My plan is to include courses in statistics and biology to provide analytical skills and technical knowledge and social sciences to expand my understanding of human behaviors and inequities. Through my planned experiential study and independent study, I will apply my technical research and social/cultural skills to focus on several areas of public health. Through these projects, I will learn how to effectively use my knowledge and expertise in the workforce and/or graduate school. My plan makes good use of a variety of classes in different departments offered at St. Olaf that would provide a good foundation for my independent major. I plan on taking classes in a combination of areas for my individual major in order to provide the best foundation for a future career in public health. I plan to take classes from
departments such as Sociology/Anthropology, Biology, Political Science, and Statistics. Core classes such as Microbiology, Statistics for Science, and Ethnographic research methods will provide a foundation for my major. While supplementary classes in Spanish and Introduction to Sociology will compliment my major. Classes in Spanish will not only provide me knowledge of another language, but also the cultural context of Spanishspeaking people in the United States and other Spanish-speaking countries. Taking classes in political science allows me to the learn how certain information influences health care policy. Taking classes in Biology will allow me to understand how diseases spread and the body s response to various pathogens. A public health major allows students one of the best opportunities to gain a global perspective. In fact, it will be one of the most appropriate majors to prepare students for a life of worth and service due to its focus on policy, analysis and ways to understand the issues that are prevalent in public health. Through the courses and required experiential learning, it will equip students with the necessary skills to critically analyze issues, and find efficient ways to tackle them thus making them of worth and service and successfully achieving the mission statement of St. Olaf College. Preparation and Goals: Project: Access to Health Care and Status of Health care system in El Progreso, Honduras Survey Over the Summer, I was an intern at Organization for Youth Empowerment in El Progreso, Yoro, Honduras for two months. I completed a variety of activities including creating and conducting a survey in Spanish on access to and quality of health care of teens and young adults. I learned a lot of Spanish and learned cross-cultural skills that will benefit me in the future like listening carefully to members of the El Progreso community. I am currently in the process of completing the analysis of the data to be shared back to the Organization for Youth Empowerment. How to use this major in the future? In the future, I hope to utilize this major in a thoughtful manner whether I end up in graduate school or head straight into the workforce. Although my dream is to work in Public Health, my motivation for this major, has been to become better able to work toward practical approaches to facilitate marginalized populations achieve core human rights.
Skills at the economic, social and cultural policy analysis levels will be useful regardless of the question to which they are applied. Some current possibilities after graduation are working for non-profit organizations, completing programs such as Peace Corps or Global Health corps, or working for government health systems either domestic, or in other countries. Why this is the right major for my educational career I am passionate about helping to alleviate some injustices that exist within the health field, disparities in access and in quality that I have witnessed. I believe this is the right curated major that would best enable me to succeed in the future in a public health career. I will be able to personalize my major in a way that integrates critical information and skills in various type of analysis ranging from social sciences and natural sciences, to statistics to address in a thoughtful and practical manner aspects of health inequities within a global context. Consultations: Peer Consultations: The feedback that I have received from my peer consultation meeting was mainly associated with grammar and organization tips in order to make the proposal clearer and coherent. Librarian Consultation: Jason Paul, who is a research librarian gave me starting points for databases and general resources that I could possibly utilize after I have decided on my specific senior project. I will be conducting this in accordance with my Independent major. There are databases such as ProQuest that I will refer to during my research investigations after I have officially started the research process for my senior project. Faculty Feedback: Kris Thalhammer who is my academic advisor has provided guidance and support as I developed this proposal and she will continue to do so.