Micro-Credential in Strategies for Eliminating Health Inequities

The courses will help you to gain content expertise on the origins of health inequities and tools for intervening to eliminate health disparities. Additional portfolio building experience will enable you to demonstrate your ability to design a strategy for reducing health disparities such as a program, policy initiative or other intervention. The micro-credential can be completed in one or two semesters. Currently, one course can be completed online and one must be completed in person.

After completing the micro-credential, learners will be able to:

• Analyze how social determinants underlie health inequities.
• Infer ways in which historical, political, and economic forces have contributed to present day health inequities.
• Critically analyze the scholarly literature to identify and/or conceptualize program and policy solutions to health inequities.
• Apply and teach skills for collaborating with community partners that will reduce health inequities.
• Use formative research to develop an intervention to address health inequities.
• Understand the ways in which evidence-based programs are created, adapted and implemented by community organizations.

Applicants who are not currently enrolled in a UB graduate program who have earned a 4-year degree from an accredited college are eligible to join the micro-credential.

UB graduate students who have earned a 4-year degree from an accredited college or who have graduate student status in a combined undergraduate/graduate degree program may earn the micro-credential badge.

• Completing the micro-credential can help individuals in the not-for profit sector serve marginalized communities.
• It can help health care providers and health systems leaders understand the causes of health inequities and identify and implement strategies for eliminating health care inequities as well as leverage resources and soft power to improve social determinants of health.
• The micro-credential will help professionals become health equity leaders within their organizations.

To earn the micro-credential learners complete either:

• CHB 525 Health Disparities or CHB 524 A Public Health Approach to Understanding and Reducing Sexual Risk Behaviors;
• and complete CHB 523 Introduction to Program Planning and Evaluation (either in person or online).
• Learners must earn a B or better in both courses to receive the micro-credential badge.
• In addition to meeting the course requirements, learners will plan a novel strategy for reducing a health inequity and prepare a slide deck for presenting their strategy.

Fall Semester

Health Disparities is designed to give students an in-depth understanding of the social determinants of health and how their ills and benefits are unequally distributed across society. We will cover differences in health status associated with race, ethnicity, immigrant status, education, income, disability, geographic location, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. We will examine the multiple pathways through which these inequities are produced and reinforced, including structural and interpersonal discrimination and stigma. The course will provide historical and theoretical perspectives on health disparities and provide a critical examination of empiric research on explanatory pathways. We will also discuss methods for conducting research and intervening in disadvantaged communities. Students will have an opportunity to engage in work on a health disparities topic of their choosing.

Spring Semester

The course will introduce students to historical trends in the population burden of sexual risk behaviors, the social ecology of these risks, and current controversies in practice and policy. We will also examine surveillance systems and nationally representative samples used to monitor trends in high-risk sexual behaviors and related consequences. Students will critically examine the logic and impact of current domestic standards for sexual health policy and practice through a comparative look at sexual health needs (e.g., contraceptive use, STI prevention and treatment, and HIV-related services) in a range of diverse clinical and social settings with different populations (adolescents, young adults, older adults). Using a variety of teaching methods, students will receive an overview of the dynamics of high-risk sexual activity among individuals, communities, and populations. Topics will include an assessment of current peer-reviewed research and professional guidelines for effective sexual risk reduction, federal and state policies related to sexuality, pregnancy, contraception, and HIV/STI prevention, and current curricula at the national and state level for sexuality education.

Learners will plan a novel strategy for reducing a health inequity and prepare a slide deck for presenting the strategy. This strategy can be a program, policy proposal, systems change process or other initiative. The presentation does not need to be presented; however, ideally it would be presented in a community setting.

Admissions are ongoing, however applications must be submitted by August 15 to start the micro-credential in the Fall semester and by January 15 to start in the Spring semester.

If you are not a current UB student:

Apply to the micro-credential by completing the Community Health and Health Behavior Non-Degree Student application.

You will be asked to submit a copy of your transcript for your highest degree and a 300 word statement describing why you would like to complete the micro-credential. You will be required to pay a $50 application fee.

If you are currently a UB graduate student:

Please notify Barbara Sen at bsen@buffalo.edu that you would like to complete the micro-credential. UB graduate students may enroll in the micro-credential at any stage in their career, including after they have completed the necessary coursework.

Contact undergraduate advisement at sphhp-oasa@buffalo.edu or (716) 829-5000.