SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Fall 2011
COURSE:
PH 700A,International Maternal-Child Health
This three credit course is an introduction to maternal, infant, and child health, with an emphasis
on the developing world. This course is strongly recommended for Joint PhD students in the
Global Health, Epidemiology and Health Behavior Programs, as well as for second-year Master's
students in public health or related health fields who are interested in international maternal child
health. Each week there will be required readingsdesigned to provide a basic understanding of
the key aspects of maternal-child health, a presentation on an important policy, service delivery
or clinical aspect of the topic for that week, and two student presentations on cutting-edge
questions under consideration by governments, donors, and international organizations. Student
enrollment is limited to 20. The course will involve several guest lecturers so that students may
gain perspectives of those directly involved in the development and execution of maternal-child
health policies at international level.There will not be a midterm or a final, with grades based on
the scores on the weekly quizzes, class participation, the two oral presentations, and the two
briefing notes.
The course will cover the continuum from adolescent health to pregnancy and childbearing, the
neonatal period, infancy and early childhood and certain key child health issues, including
immunization and the prevention and treatment of the key killers of children in the developing
world, as outlined in the weekly schedule.
INSTRUCTOR:
Nancy Binkin, MD MPH
Lecturer, Global Health Joint Degree Program
Phone: (619) 906-2152
Office Hours: by arrangement; please send an e-mail or call me to
schedule
Office address: HH 136A
nbinkin@mail.sdsu.edu
CREDIT:
Three (3) semester units
TIME:
Mondays 10:00 to 12:40 PM, August 29, 2011-December 12, 2011
PLACE:
NE-085
TAs:
Lotus McDougal, MPH and Matthew Brown, MPS
JDP II students
lmcdouga@rohan.sdsu.edu (McDougal) and mattandmaureen@aol.com
(Brown)
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COURSE DETAILS
REQUIRED TEXT: John Ehiri,"Maternal and Child Health: Global Challenges, Programs, and
Policies". Springer-Verlag, 2009
Weekly assignments, quizzes, other documents, news, and changes will be posted to the PH
700A Blackboard site. Registered students will have immediate access to this site.
WEB RESOURCES:
 SDSU JDP in Global Health: http://publichealth.sdsu.edu/phd-global-main.php. This will
have announcements, opportunities, and links of interest.
 UCSD Global Health Website: http://gph.ucsd.edu/index.shtml, which also will have
descriptions of programs, research, and opportunities on the UCSD campus.
 World Health Organization: www.who.int. Specifically of note are the nutrition pages,
which include evidence-based guidelines on a variety of topics and the adolescent and
child health pages. www.who.int/nutrition/en/ and
www.who.int/child_adolescent_health/en/
 UNICEF:Of particular interest may be the State of the World’s Children (SOWC) annual
series, each of which deals with an different issue in MCH as well as publications on
specific topics. In the back of each SOWC, there are the latest numbers on all major
maternal and child outcomes.www.unicef.org
 Demographic Health Surveys: These surveys contain a wealth of information on a wide
variety of maternal and child health topics. In addition to country reports, there is a
useful interactive program called Statcompiler that allows you to pull up data in an
interactive way. www.measuredhs.com and www.statcompiler.com/index.cfm
 Childinfo: a UNICEF website that contains a great deal of data on trends in mortality and
on specific problems that is drawn from both MICS and DHS surveys.
www.childinfo.org
 Countdown to 2015: Maternal, Newborn, and Child Survival. This group publishes an
excellent annual report with country-by-country indicators on maternal and child health
and where they stand in relation to the 2015 Millennium Development Goals. They also
have links to major papers in the field. http://www.countdown2015mnch.org/
 Healthy Newborn Network: extensive bibliography/links to a wide variety of topics in
maternal, perinatal, and newborn health. www.healthynewbornnetwork.org/
 BASICS, the long-term USAID maternal and child health
 In recent years, most of the landmark papers in maternal child health have appeared in the
Lancet, which has actively commissioned entire issues on various maternal and child
health topics. www.thelancet.com/home
 The Cochrane Collaboration has done several reviews related to maternal child health
topics, although not all are international in their interest and scope.
 UN Millennium Development Goals www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
ASSIGNMENTS
1. Class Readings
Students are expected to readthe assigned materials, which will consist of introductions
and broad overviews of each topic. They will not be covered during class time, which
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will be used instead for presentations on an interesting or controversial aspect of the topic
and for student presentations. The readings for the following week will be posted by
Monday evening after each class and will generally consist of the relevant chapter from
the Ehiri text and one additional article. Suggested readings will also be posted.
2. Weekly Quizzes
Each week, a quiz on the week’s required readings will be posted on Blackboard.
Quizzes must be completed by 11:59 PM on the Saturday prior to each class and placed
in the Blackboard digital drop box for the course. Results will be discussed during the
first few minutes of each class. These quizzes will account for 20% of the grade. They
are not meant to be group work, nor are they meant to be searches for key words in the
relevant documents—you will only get out of this course what you put into it.
3. Oral Presentations
Each student is responsible for developing two fifteen-minute oral presentations on topics
chosen from the list suggested by the instructor in the attached .xlsx document. Students
will be expected to send their first five choices in rank order to the instructor via e-mail
by 5 PM Thursday September 1; assignments will be made by 5 PM Friday September 2.
Every attempt will be made to give students their top choices, although the instructor
reserves the right to assign unselected topics.
Once the topic is chosen, students will be expected to identify at least three references
that will be used to develop the presentation. These references should be sent to the focal
TA for your presentation no later thana week prior to your presentations. They will
provide feedback to you within 24 hours. Approved references should be included as a
citation on the last slide of the presentation.
The presentations are designed to improve the students’ skills in providing concise,
technically accurate presentations to a non-scientific audience. An important task of
technical staff in international bilateral and international agencies is to be able to brief
policy makers with limited subject matter expertise on important topics, such that they
can bring these topics to the table in a variety of policy and funding forums and credibly
represent their institutions.
To this end, you will be expected to give a presentation to the fictitious Ms. Antonia
Ocean, a lawyer and the former national security advisor to the US government, who has
been recently appointed as head of a major UN agency dealing with maternal and child
health and welfare. She has a limited health background, and her chief of staff, a long
term employee of the organization, has asked if he can organize a series of briefings on
key issues that are likely to come up at the World Health Assembly in two weeks.
The presentations, which should be accompanied by a series of slides, should be e-mailed
to the instructor, the TAs, and to your fellow students by Sunday at 5 PM the day prior to
the presentation; failure to do so will result in a deduction in the points allocated to this
portion of the grade, Your presentation will be closely timed and will be stopped after
exactly15minutes. It will be followed by a Q and A by the instructor (in the role of Ms.
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Ocean) and two of her “staff”, as well as by your fellow classmates. Students should plan
on no more than 15 substantive slides to guide the 15 minutes of presentation.
The presentation should focus on 1) what is the nature of the problem and what are the
principal causes (e.g., what is obstetric fistula and why does it occur); 2) the magnitude of
the problem; 3) temporal trends; 4) where the problem is occurring; 5) who is most
affected; 5) potential solutions that are evidence-based. Not all of these categories are
directly applicable to all the topics, and if you have concerns, please consult the instructor
or one of the TAs.
Feedback will be provided via e-mail to the individual presenters by noon on the day
following the presentation. In addition to the quality of the content, presentations will be
judged on the basis of their flow and logic, presentation style (appropriate speed, tone,
and eye contact), the quality of the slides and graphics, and response to the questions and
answers.
4. Briefing Documents
In addition to conducting the briefing on your two topics, you will be expected to prepare
a briefing document for Ms. Ocean for the upcoming World Health Assembly, where she
will be expected to contribute on an ad hoc basis or as part of a more formal panel on the
topic. In bullet form, describe 1) the current magnitude and status of the problem; 2)
potential solutions; 3) key challenges to implementation of effective solutions; 4) major
partners, and 5) what her organization can do. Briefing documents should be two pages
in length (Arial 11 point, 1.5 spacing, with 1 inch margins), and are due on the Friday
following the presentation at 5 PM to allow for incorporation of any feedback from the
oral presentation.
By way of background, assume that the organization has a) a primary focus on childhood
well-being and an interest but little previous experience in maternal health; 2) that it has
high international credibility and can use its “brand” to catalyze international activities
and elicit developing country government support; 3) that it has good working
relationships with many but not all governments, 4) has “boots on the ground” in all
major developing countries and that country staff includes at least a health officer and
usually additional staff in immunization, nutrition, and some disease-specific areas such
as HIV; 5) is not a research institution and generally does not fund research; 6) does have
experience with program scaleup; and 7) has a decent budget (but with many competing
priorities) can often leverage much larger international donors.
GRADING: Grading will be based on the following:
Required attendance and participation
10%
Weekly quizzes
20%
Oral presentations
35%
Briefing documents
35%
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Letter grades will be based on cumulative scores:
100-95= A
79-75= C+
94-90= A74-70= C
89-85= B+
69-60= D
84-80= B
<60 = F [non-passing grade]
Attendance:Attendance will be taken during each class period by the TAs. One excused absence
is allowed, after which the attendance and participation grade will be reduced. A make up paper
may be assigned consisting of a 2-page policy brief on the subject matter of the missed lecture.
Disclaimer: Course Syllabus Subject to Change
Every effort will be made to follow the syllabus content and schedule; however, if circumstances
dictate, there may be modifications necessary during the semester. The professor or TAwill
notify students in a timely manner.
Academic Integrity: Academic dishonesty is an affront to the integrity of scholarship at SDSU
and a threat to the quality of learning. Violations of academic integrity are noted in the SDSU
Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities:http://csrr.sdsu.edu/rights2.html/.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is academically and ethically unacceptable. Students are strongly urged
to take the SDSU library’s online tutorial (http://infotutor.sdsu.edu/plagiarism/)and utilize the
TURNITIN tool on Blackboard prior to submission of the written assignments.
Overall Course Objectives
1. Describe the magnitude, distribution, and principal causes of maternal and child mortality
in developing countries.
2. Describe critical determinants of major maternal and child health problems
3. Identify the primary evidence-based preventive and curative strategies for the leading
causes of maternal and child mortality and the policy, logistical, and human and financial
resource obstacles to their successful implementation.
4. Describe the role of integrated and vertical service delivery strategies in providing
maternal and child health prevention and treatment.
5. Identify the major governmental, international, and voluntary groups and organizations in
maternal and child health and the issues in providing adequate cooperation and synergy.
CLASS SCHEDULE
See attached
Statement on Nondiscrimination Policy
San Diego State University complies with the requirements of Title VI and Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, as well as other applicable federal and state laws prohibiting discrimination.
No person shall, on the basis of race, color, or national origin be excluded from participation in,
be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise subjected to discrimination in any program of the
California State University
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SDSU does not discriminate on the basis of disability in admission or access to, or treatment or
employment in, its programs and activities. Students should direct inquiries concerning San
Diego State University’s compliance with all relevant disability laws to the Director of Student
Disability Services (SDS), Calpulli Center, Room 3101, San Diego State University, San Diego,
CA 92128 or call 619-594-6473 (TDD: 619-594-2929).
SDSU does not discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, or sexual orientation in the educational
programs or activities it conducts.
More detail on SDSU’s Nondiscrimination Policy can be found in the SDSU General Catalog,
University Policies.
Student Conduct and Grievances
SDSU is committed to maintaining a safe and healthy living and learning environment for
students, faculty and staff. Sections 41301, Standards for Student Conduct, and Sections 4130241304 of the University Policies regarding student conduct should be reviewed.
If a student believes that a professor’s treatment is grossly unfair or that a professor’s behavior is
clearly unprofessional, the student may bring the complaint to the proper university authorities
and official reviewing bodies. See University policies on Student Grievances.
Statement on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty
Academic dishonesty includes cheating, plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty that
are intended to gain unfair academic advantage. See section 41301 of the University policies.
Plagiarism is an important element of this policy. Plagiarism is defined as ‘formal work publicly
misrepresented as original; it is any activity wherein one person knowingly, directly and for
lucre, status, recognition, or any public gain resorts to the published or unpublished work of
another in order to represent it as one’s own’. Any work, in whole or in part, taken from the
Internet or other computer-based source without referencing the source is considered plagiarism.
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