The Levan Institute Interdisciplinary Minor in International Health, Development, and Social Justice

How do we achieve the fundamental conditions for human dignity and healthy lives? What are the international moral obligations arising from public and private development? How does attention to justice influence the questions we ask and the institutions we construct? Current international challenges in health and development are grounded in broader questions of achieving social justice and advancing the common good. To answer these questions we need to understand the overarching principles that link health, development, and social justice; we need to study cross-cultural approaches to social and economic rights; we need to construct ethical institutions and practices. This interdisciplinary minor will prepare students for careers and leadership roles in arenas such as political economy, health and wellness, gender equity, global medicine, economic development, human welfare, and social justice.

The Interdisciplinary Minor inInternational Health,

Development, and Social Justice

INTERNATIONAL HEALTH — collaborative research and action for improving health and achieving health equity for all people in the world, especially focusing on issues of maternal and child health in low-income countries, infectious diseases, and recent health consequences of global climate change, food shortages, economic inequities, and environmental degradation.

DEVELOPMENT — theories of international development tend to focus on poverty alleviation and economic develop-ment. According to Mahbub ul Haq, founder of the Human Development Report, people often value achievements that do not show up in income or growth figures: greater access to knowledge, better nutrition and health services, more secure livelihoods, security against crime and physical violence, satisfying leisure hours, political and cultural freedoms, and a sense of participation in community activities. The objective of human development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy, and creative lives.

SOCIAL JUSTICE — theories of social justice require institu-tions to secure human and civil rights, constrain exploitation, meet basic human needs, and advance the common good. So-cial justice is realized when all members of society, individu-als as well as groups, are ensured, by settled institutions and practices, their fair share of social goods including respect, opportunities, and resources.

Children taking a break from class at their newly established primary school in northeastern India.

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Course Requirements

This interdisciplinary minor requires six courses (24 units). As with all minors, students should take care to include four courses (16 units) outside their major department, four courses at the upper-division level, and four courses that are not being used to satisfy any other subject requirement. In addition, to satisfy this minor, students must choose courses from at least two different departments.

FOR LOWER-DIVISION REQUIREMENTS, STUDENTS CHOOSE AMONG COURSES SUCH ASANTH 101 Body, Mind and Healing BISC 103Lx General Biology for the Environment and Life BISC 150Lxg The Nature of Human Health and Disease GEOL 108Lg Crises of a Planet IR 101xg International Relations PHIL 140g Contemporary Moral and Social Issues

FOR HEALTH AND WELLNESS, CHOOSE AMONG COURSES SUCH ASANTH 301 The Performance of Healing ANTH 405 Evolutionary Medicine SWMS 336 Health, Gender, and Ethnicity IR 339 Public Health and International Relations PSYC 462m Culture and Mental Health REL 460 Senior Seminar: Medical Ethics SOCI 475 Medical Sociology

FOR THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT, CHOOSE AMONG COURSES SUCH ASIR 325 Rich and Poor States in the World Political Economy IR 454 The International Political Economy of Development POSC 450 Political Development POSC 456 Women in International Development SOCI 470 Development and Social Change in the Third World

FOR PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL JUSTICE, CHOOSE AMONG COURSES SUCH AS SWMS 384m Gender, Social Inequality, and Social Justice IR 316 Gender and Global Issues IR 401 The United Nations and World Order PHIL 431 Law, Society, and Politics REL 366 Religion and Social Change SOCI 360m Social Inequality: Class, Status, and Power

CAPSTONE COURSES INCLUDEMDA 320 Global Ethics: Poverty, Health and the Human Condition SOCI 408 Volunteers, Non-Governmental Organizations, and Everyday PoliticsSOCI 450 NGO/Non-profit Field Studies Practicum

The Interdisciplinary Minor In International Health, Development, and Social Justice was created by the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE MINOR, CONTACT THE USC DORNSIFE UNDERGRADUATE ADVISING OFFICE AT (213) 740-2534, OR VISIT: DORNSIFE.USC.EDU/INTL-HEALTH-SOCIAL-JUSTICE-MINOR

FOR MORE ABOUT THE USC LEVAN INSTITUTE FOR HUMANITES AND ETHICS, CALL (213) 740-0009, OR VISIT: DORNSIFE.USC.EDU/LEVAN-INSTITUTE

“Human development, as an approach, is concerned with what I take to be the basic development idea: namely, advancing the richness of human life, rather than the richness of the economy in which human beings live, which is only a part of it.”

—Amartya Sen, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences 1998

A mother and her baby in India, which has a 12.95% preterm birth rate. Southeastern Vietnam The Philippines

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Millennium Development Goals: 2013 PROGRESS CHARTThe eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were derived from the Millennium Declaration, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2000. Through the Declaration, world leaders forged a commitment to combat poverty, hunger and disease, provide education to all children and equal opportunities to both women and men, protect the environment, establish a global partnership for devel-opment, and to achieve these goals by 2015.

The MDGs provide a framework of time-bound goals and targets through which progress can be measured, using a baseline of 1990. This chart presents an assess ment of progress towards selected targets on the basis of information available as of June 2013. The latest available data for most indicators refer to 2011 to 2013.

The Interdisciplinary Minor in International Health, Development, and Social Justice

For the regional groupings and country data, see mdgs.un.org Country experiences in each region may differ significantly from the regional average. Due to new data and revised methodologies, this Progress Chart is not comparable with previous versions.

Sources: United Nations, based on data and estimates provided by: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Inter-Parliamentary Union; International Labour Organization; International Telecommunication Union; UNAIDS; UNESCO; UN-Habitat; UNICEF; UN Population Division; World Bank; World Health Organization – based on statistics available as of June 2013.

Compiled by Statistics Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations.