What is the COPC Option?

Credits and Clinical Hours

• The COPC Option requires Masters students to complete an additional six credits. The remaining credits, and all of the clinical practice hours, are required of all FNP students.

• Clinical practice hours in all Family Nurse Practitioner courses are completed in practices serving minority populations in urban and rural settings.

COURSES

Two courses are required for MSN and Postmaster's students in the COPC option: (1) NURS293 (just below) and (2) a selective course from the Selective Choices list below, or as approved by your Academic Advisor.

NURS 830 Community-Oriented Primary Care for Underserved Populations (3 credits, Fall ).
Introduces principles of community-oriented primary care with rural and underserved populations: health assessment; program planning and evaluation; culturally competent care; and effective and efficient practice management strategies.

ANTH 770 Seminar on Anthropological Perspectives on Latin America (3 credits, Fall)
Focuses on the interaction of five major issues in Latin America: class, ethnicity, gender, religion, and health.

EPID 757 Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in Developing Countries (3 credits, Fall)
Examines the epidemiology of AIDS from an international perspective. It considers the AIDS pandemic in a broad epidemiology perspective, including key aspects of basic, clinical, and social science.

EPID 880 Foundations of Public Health Ethics (3 credits, Alternate Spring)
Basic ethical rationales underlying concerns central to public health, including: ethical reasoning; concepts of justice; the influences of religion; principles of interacting with communities; professional conduct; and research ethics.

EPID 826 Social Epidemiology: Concepts and Measures (3 credits, Alternate Spring)
Social forces affecting community health and how to measure them for epidemiologic analysis. Topics range from social networks to racism and ethics.

HBHE 708 U.S. Latino Health Promotion (3 credits, Fall)
An examination of social, political, geographic, and psychological forces affecting the health of Latinos in the U.S. Discussion of theoretical and methodological issues relevant to U.S. Latino health promotion research to help prepare students to do research or work in the Latino community. An emphasis on Mexico and the Mexican-American experience.

HBHE 710 Community Capacity, Competence, and Power (3 credits, Spring)
The nature and delineation of participatory action research and its relevance to concepts, principles, and practices of community empowerment. Students learn methods, such as photovoice, through learning projects.

HBHE 802 Social Determinants of Health: Theory, Method and Intervention (3 credits, Fall)
Discussion and readings will focus on population vs. individual perspectives on health, risk conditions vs. risk factors, concepts of causation, and knowledge development as an historic and social process, and will examine macro-level determinants of population health.

HPAA 760 Access and Quality of Care for Latino Population (1-3 credits, Spring)
Presentations of issues related to access and quality, delivered in Spanish, serve as an introduction to Latino public health terminology.

MHCH 722 Issues in International Maternal and Child Health (3 credits, Fall)
Focuses on key issues concerning the health status and needs of mothers and children under-five in the developing world. Topics include discussions of the major causes of both maternal and under-five mortality, measurement and indicators of health status, levels and patterns of maternal and child morbidity and mortality and major programmatic interventions (e.g., antenal care, the Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI), IMCI, oral rehydration therapy, immunizaton (EPI)).

MHCH 756 Understanding and Addressing Health Inequalities in the US (3 credits, Spring)
Provides the knowledge, skills and abilities to conduct needs assessment, critical appraisal and measurement of the distribution, causes and consequences of health inequalities, to evaluate or design intervention with respect to clinical practice, allocation of resources, health, medical care and/or social policy, and to design appropriate etiologic, health services or clinical research, targeted toward understanding, reducing and ultimately eliminating health disparities of various types and across varying vulnerable populations. This course aims to help learners define an implementable vision for improving health inequalities within the real world of research, policy, programs or medicine in which they expect to establish a career.

MEDI 876 Rural Health: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (3 credits, Spring)
Goals are to (1) increase trainees' understanding of issues which impact on rural health care and (2) increase trainees' appreciation of the efficacy of interdisciplinary collaboration in meeting the health-care needs in rural environments

PUBH 732 Cultural Competencies of Health Organizations (3 credits, Spring; offered on-line)
Provides health care professionals with framework for implementation of National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care (CLAS).

SOWO 400 Racism: Implications for Human Services (3 credits, TBA )
This course's organizing focus will be how to work with minority groups, especially African Americans. The conceptual framework will be directed toward relationship building to enhance service delivery.

SOWO 501 Discrimination and Inequality (3 credits, TBA)
Examines discrimination and its implications for social work practice. Particular attention is paid to issues of race and gender and the consequences of social inequality on individuals and families.

SOWO 880 Sustainable Development (3 credits, TBA)
Examines perspectives and models of sustainable development. Students propose a project and present a participatory plan for engaging in sustainable development work.

SOCI 422 Sociology of Health and Mental Illness (3 credits, Fall)
Examines the uniqueness of the sociological perspective in understanding mental health and illness. It draws upon various fields to explain mental illness in as broad a social context as possible. Attention focuses on how social factors influence definitions and perceptions of illness.

SOCI 469 Medicine in the Twenty-First Century: Health, Physicians and Society (3 credits, TBA)
The primary objective of the course is to explain why particular social arrangements affect the types and distribution of diseases and how the medical care system is organized and responds. The course will focus on three topics: social factors in disease and illness; health care practitioners and their patients; and the changing face of the health care system.

Program Length

• Master's students who matriculate full-time complete the program in two academic years (4 semesters) and the intervening summer. To preview a full-time plan of study, click here and look at the left-hand column.

• Master's students may complete the Program part-time in three academic years (6 semesters) and one summer. They have five years to complete the program. To preview a suggested part-time plan of study, click here and look at the right-hand column.

• Postmaster's students complete their studies in three academic semesters and one summer. To preview a suggested plan of study, click here.

• Students enrolled in the RN to MSN Program often complete their studies part-time in nine semesters. To preview a suggested plan of part-time study for RN to MSN students click here. To preview a suggested plan of full-time study, click here.

Where is the COPC Option located?

• Coursework is offered on the Chapel Hill campus. Some classes in each course are offered by distance-learning methods (teleclassing, web-based, on-site precepting).

• Precepted clinical experiences in NURS 810, 827, 825 and 828 are arranged in practices reaching the underserved and vulnerable throughout NC. We aim to provide preceptorships in or near students' home communities.

• Opportunities for practicums can be arranged throughout the US and internationally.