Erica Thomas, DHEd

Courses Taught

• Practical Application in Program Design
• This course will integrate all of the student's previous coursework, to enable them to assess health and fitness, prescribe appropriate exercise, and optimize human performance for a variety of populations. This will be completed, first through practical classroom experience, followed by a 6 week hands-on personal training project. Critical reading, scientific writing, and oral presentations will be required for students to incorporate current physiological principles and theories with the design and prescription of exercise programs. This course is the capstone course for Human Performance and Fitness majors.
• Health, Illness, and Well-being
• This course will introduce the physical, psychological, and social changes that occur with aging. Course covers several themes, including understanding social determinants and consequences of health and development, measuring population health, assessing the implications of health disparities, and the contributions of biological and environmental factors (including physical activity) to health, human development, and chronic disease.
• Health Promotion and Communication
• This course will examine the social and behavioral issues that challenge the health and wellness of individuals and populations. The students will explore health behavior and communication theories and models and integrate these models to develop a health education program. The students will explore media-mass, social, and participatory communication campaign to promote health and wellness.
• Qualitative Research
• Research is essential to the profession of public health. Within this course, students will explore qualitative research methodologies. Examination of the aim and priorities of qualitative research related to the profession, the types of qualitative research, characteristics of effective scientific inquiry and the necessity of evidence based practice to the profession of public health will be studied. An important emphasis is ethics in research and an understanding of the relationship obligations between researchers and people involved as participants in qualitative research.