Title:Health innovation in action

Call course explores health equity outside the classroom

Health Innovation for the Common Good, a course offered on Georgetown’s Capitol Campus through the Capitol Applied Learning Labs (CALL) program, is getting undergraduates out of the classroom to explore health equity from different angles.

“Health affects everything, everywhere,” says Brian Floyd, assistant dean of academic affairs at the School of Health.

Floyd envisioned and designed the one-credit course during the COVID-19 pandemic so that students could see how health inequities translated outside of classroom theory. Using Georgetown’s Capitol Campus as a home base, the six week course meets once a week at different locations throughout the city.

He believes the course’s varied sites show the dynamic circumstances of where and how health care is delivered. Locations from previous semesters include the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, a community health center called Mary’s Center, founded by Maria Gomez (NHS’77), and the offices of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

The sites and learning objectives change from semester to semester to provide students with the fullest understanding possible of social determinants of health. To do that, “we’re thinking about lots of different levels of interaction,” Floyd says, from research to policy, education, and housing. He particularly enjoys visits to community-based organizations, where the “actual direct service” happens.

Nursing student Francyne Diola (N’27) was searching for these kinds of real-life interactions when she chose the course. “Most of my courses have been focused on the clinical setting,” says Diola, “so it was great to have the opportunity to learn about health equity and what drives social determinants of health.”

Before each onsite visit, students prepare with readings and academic work. The class is designed to be small, with 9–12 students, to allow for more engagement and easier movement around onsite locations. The interdisciplinary course invites participants from any major and counts toward minors in medical humanities, disability studies, and justice and peace studies. Past students have gone on to medical school, local public health work, and master’s degrees in policy.

For their final class project, groups envision ways to improve a health equity issue—for example, expanding health care coverage, improving procedure protocols, and addressing barriers to reproductive care.

In future semesters, Floyd hopes to host organizational leaders as audience members during final presentations.