The Nation’s Health: From Policy to Practice (UNIV 3325/5325) will prepare Vanderbilt students to be effective participants in debates over health policy by immersing them in the health policy environment and critically addressing taken-for-granted ideas about health. This multicultural university course is organized around big questions in the study of health disparities and domestic health policy with a particular focus on how health policy affects the lives of diverse Americans living in the Southern United States, sometimes in unexpected or unintended ways. Importantly, these big questions not only reflect major concerns in the academic literature but also the lives and concerns of Vanderbilt’s racially and economically diverse student body. Through its explicit interdisciplinary design, the course will bring together studies of the policy process at multiple levels of government with social science on health disparities, policy advocacy, and health social movements. Students will also learn how to engage state legislators and popular audiences through the creation of policy briefs and op-eds.

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Recent Blogs

• Insider Politics: University Course Goes to the State Capitol
• Another Semester of Health Policy & Advocacy
• Reflecting on the First Semester of The Nation’s Health
• Tennessee State Capitol Visit Reflection #3
• Tennessee State Capitol Visit Reflection #2
• Tennessee State Capitol Visit Reflection
• Calling A Congressional Representative
• Immersion Learning 101: Impromptu Capitol Visit
• A Reflection Piece: Debating the ACA
• Introducing ‘The Nation's Health: From Policy to Practice’