Research and Applications in Biobehavioral Health

Catalog description

Research methods, multi-level analyses, and applications in biobehavioral health. BB H 411W Research and Applications in Biobehavioral Health (3)This is an upper-division course on research and applications in Biobehavioral Health and is the designated writing intensive (W) course for the major. The primary goals of this course are to provide the student the ability to effectively: 1) find, organize, integrate, and critique existing knowledge and research in biobehavioral health; 2) generate and analyze new data related to a specific domain though the conduct of original research; 3) interpret, evaluate, and communicate --to both scientific and lay audiences--the results of the original research; and 4) integrate these findings--with due concern for strengths and limitations of the research--back into the body of knowledge on the biobehavioral health topic. In this course the instructor will first introduce the student into a body of knowledge related to a domain involving health and health-related behaviors. Example domains may include areas such as, stress and health, drug/alcohol addictions and health, hormonal impacts on health, smoking cessation programs, obesity and health, sexual behaviors and health, etc. Students will go through the steps involved in original research (e.g., Introduction, Methods and Procedures, Results, Discussion, Summary, Abstract, Bibliography) and written assignments will be involved for each step. Depending on the instructor, the original research may involve laboratory work, collection of survey data, analyses of publically available data, or existing data sets based on faculty's research program. Students will learn how to use available tools to descriptively summarize and analyze data using computer-assisted software. This is a required course in the Biobehavioral Health major. The course is designed to give skills to acquire, integrate, and critique health-related information and to communicate to professional and non-professional audiences. The course is appropriate for students intending to obtain positions in health promotion and disease prevention and to students seeking to advance to post-baccalaureate graduate and professional programs in medicine, public health, health policy and planning, and other health-related careers.