CSS4: Epidemiology, Health Disparity, Patient Advocacy, Motivational Interviewing and Self-Care

This course will prepare students to identify public health issues and to identify populations at risk for a variety of diseases. Principles of epidemiology as a diagnostic discipline of population health will be explored. In addition, this course will enable the student to critically evaluate current trends in the care of patient populations. Issues relating to disaster planning and emergency preparedness will be discussed. Focus will be placed on the role of the pharmacist in the public health policy, advocacy, and correcting health disparities. Students will continue to learn how to advise patients on smoking cessation, over-the-counter products, complementary and alternative medicines (CAM), and acquire introductory characteristics of the second approximately150 drugs from the top 300 drugs through self-study. Student communication, motivational interviewing techniques, patient counseling skills will also be assessed using objective structured clinical exam (OSCE) format.