Core Curriculum: Global Aging and Health Care

Everyone is aging. Consider learning more about age-friendly environments and global aging issues by taking GERO 215 – Introduction to Global Aging and Health Care!

An age-friendly gerontology course has been integrated into the University’s core curriculum (CORE 39) – Ways of Knowing: World Languages and Culture (Outcome 1) and CORE 39 Global Embedded Experience.

The course will have a broad appeal to students of all disciplines. Explore this class if you are undecided in a career choice or if you want to learn more about how aging affects all of us, including those in the health professions.

For more information, check out the details below.

Course Name: GERO 215 – Introduction to Global Aging and Health Care

Course Description: Explores the experience of aging through a global perspective with cross-cultural investigations on how various interconnected realms – such as demographics, economies, environments, and health care – influence the aging experience.  

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of other cultures including beliefs, values, perspectives, practices, and products.
• Understand culture within a global and comparative context (specifically, that a particular culture is one of many diverse cultures and that alternate perceptions and behaviors may be based on cultural differences).
• Identify factors that make institutions and communities age-friendly as defined by the Institutions for Healthcare Improvements (IHI) and AARP/World Health Organization (WHO), particularly for older adults.
• Apply academic tools to analyzing an oral history of an older adult and make a cross-cultural comparisons.
• Describe the major strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and problems with delivering telemedicine globally.
• Demonstrates an extensive analysis of one or more instances of global interconnectedness.
• Demonstrates an extensive analysis of social and/or environmental challenges as they pertain to global issues and evaluates the local or broader consequences of human behavior(s).
• Conducts an extensive analysis of the impact(s) of ethical, social, and/or environmental decisions on global sustainability.
• Demonstrate the ability to use problem solving, the process of designing, evaluating, and implementing a strategy or strategies to answer an open-ended question or achieve a desired goal, as defined by the way of knowing.