Spring 2027

Public Health in Rural & Urban Communities

This course examines sociological approaches to community, rural, and public health, focusing on epidemiological evidence and policy solutions for health issues affecting vulnerable populations in diverse settings.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 7

Past student reviews · Joshua Garoon

One student described the class as easy but noted it had more homework than they expected.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Describe and critique the role of social conditions and social change in shaping equities and disparities in environment, health, and community

  • Place an understanding of local social conditions and change in the context of rural and urban life and describe how these relate to health outcomes at the population level

  • Demonstrate leadership and collaboration skills for working with people from a diversity of background

  • Demonstrate advanced verbal and written communication skills that are applicable in a professional setting

  • Identify and analyze a particular public health problem in detail and select and evaluate the interventions that have been undertaken to ameliorate that problem, assessing those interventions’ strengths and weaknesses

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

SOC 181,SOC/​C&E SOC 140, 210, or 211

C&ESOC/SOC 533

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JOSHUA GAROON is recorded teaching in Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Joshua Garoon

Students found the course inspiring and engaging, with one describing it as a favorite class where the instructor uniquely challenged them to think.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.97 GPA, 97.2% A/AB (n=36 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.83 GPA, 91.7% A/AB (n=24 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.93 GPA, 97.1% A/AB (n=34 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Joshua Garoon

One student described the class as easy but noted it had more homework than they expected.

Past student reviews · Joshua Garoon

The instructor was described as caring and flexible, which encouraged active listening during 75-minute lectures.

Topics

  • Mental health, environmental and occupational health, preventive care, and substance abuse.
  • Sociological approaches to community, rural, and public health.
  • The role of social conditions and social change in shaping equities and disparities in environment, health, and community.
  • Local social conditions and change in the context of rural and urban life and their relation to population-level health outcomes.

Skills

  • Examine epidemiological evidence and evaluate policy solutions for health issues affecting vulnerable populations.
  • Demonstrate leadership and collaboration skills for working with people from a diversity of background.
  • Demonstrate advanced verbal and written communication skills applicable in a professional setting.
  • Identify and analyze a public health problem in detail and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of interventions used to address it.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "8e9d7751f7efc65f078a4f0e9390d694d276c4a159a87d0be104d5b36baa350a",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}