TOPIC
This course introduces the tools of historical inquiry for non-historians, in order to encourage critical reading of both historical evidence and historical analysis, as well as to encourage and facilitate their use of historical methods in their own research. Topics include historical evidence and interpretation, question-framing, the importance of context when reading about health in the past, finding primary resources in the history of medicine and public health.

AUDIENCE
This short course is targeted at researchers from the social and behavioral sciences and medicine who want to incorporate historical approaches, employ historical materials in either quantitative or qualitative analyses, or simply want to enhance their reading of the history of public health and medicine. The course assumes only that participants have studied history at the college-survey level, with no previous coursework in historical methodology.

INSTRUCTOR
Dr. Warren’s research focuses on the historical and social dynamics of health, class, race and the natural and built environments. He trained at Brandeis University in American social history. In addition to his book Brush with Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning, he has published on race-specific mortality in American cities, and the environmental history of citriculture in Florida. His current project is a book on the factors pushing for—and consequences of—Americans spending ever more time indoors. Warren directs the Historical Collections Department at the New York Academy of Medicine.

REQUIRED READING
Pneumocystis Pneumonia—Los Angeles. MMWR, June 5, 1981/ 30(21);1-3

Markel H, Lipman HB, Navarro JA, Sloan A, Michalsen JR, Stern AM, Cetron MS. Nonpharmaceutical interventions implemented by US cities during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. JAMA 2007 Aug 8;298(6):644-54

Foner, E. Preface. Who Owns History: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World, 2003, ix-xix.

Rosner D, Markowitz G, Lanphear B, J. Lockhart Gibson and the Discovery of the Impact of Lead Pigments on Children’s Health: A Review of a Century of Knowledge. Public Health Reports 2005 May-Jun;120(3): 296-300

Gibson JL. A Plea for Painted Railings and Painted Walls of Rooms as the Source of Lead Poisoning Amongst Queensland Children. Public Health Reports 2005 May-Jun;120(3): 301-4

Warren C. Little Pamphlets and Big Lies: Federal Authorities Respond to Childhood Lead Poisoning, 1935–2003 Public Health Reports 2005 May-Jun;120(3): 322-9

Warren C. Brush With Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning. 2000: 1-12

To register
This short course is open free of charge to faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students at Columbia University as well as faculty and postdoctoral fellows at other sites of the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars (H&SS) Program. Enrollment is limited to 27; H&SS affiliates will have priority.

The Health & Society Scholars Program at Columbia University is a postdoctoral program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It is a joint initiative of the Mailman School of Public Health and the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) at Columbia, and is co-directed by Bruce Link and Peter Bearman. For more information call 212-854-3694 or email chssp@columbia.edu