Community Engagement
Service-Learning Courses
Service Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities. These community-engaged courses develop the skills needed for effective work with communities and for social change.
The college offers many Service-Learning courses and programs that bring students directly into communities, often locally, where they gain first-hand experience of health disparities. Some of our Service-Learning programs include the Border Health Service-Learning Institute, Climate and Health, and Tucson Family and Child Health.
The following list of Service-Learning Courses offered by the Zuckerman College of Public Health includes several courses coordinated by the Rural Health Professions Program in the Arizona Center for Rural Health.
Border Health
EPID/PHP 597C - Border Health Service-Learning Institute
This course takes students into the Arizona-Sonora border region (Ajo, Somerton, San Luis, Yuma, and Nogales) partnering with organizations such as the Ajo Samaritans, Regional Center for Border Health, Desert Senita Health Center, Campesinos Sin Fronteras, and Yuma County Public Health Services District to address migration, labor, and health.
Explore the role of public health advocacy in globalization, migration and health in this binational, bicultural experience. Collaboratively respond to health disparities at the intersection of health, migration, agriculture and economics in the US-Mexico border region through community-based engagement and experiential learning in collaboration with community partners.
3 Credits, Spring Semester
Climate and Health
PHPM 497R/597R - Climate & Health Service-Learning
This course sends students to Bisbee and Superior for hands-on climate and environmental health work with community partners including the Red Cross, City of Tucson, and Pima County Health Department, producing tailored heat-health communication materials for local audiences.
Through this immersion with community organizations serving the needs of small and rural communities in Southeastern Arizona, students will explore environmental health and the health issues related to climate, agriculture, and mining through an environmental justice perspective.
1 Credit, Second 7-week session spring semester
Community Engagement
PHP 595 - Community Outreach: An Interprofessional Model of Service & Learning
This course brings together students from public health, medicine, pharmacy, and nursing to work alongside the Primary Prevention Mobile Health Unit, Street Medicine Phoenix, and Ventanilla de Salud in Phoenix and Douglas, delivering health screenings and education to underserved and immigrant populations across Central and Southern Arizona.
Collaboratively respond to health disparities encountered by disadvantaged and marginalized communities. Learn alongside different communities such as urban, rural, homeless, veterans, border region, immigrants, and farmworkers through community-based engagement and experiential learning in collaboration with the Primary Prevention Mobile Health Unit, and Street Medicine.
1 Credit, Hybrid, 7-week, second session
Learn about the Community Engagement Service-Learning Course
Maternal and Child Health in Urban Settings
HPS 597A - Maternal and Child Health Programs in Urban Settings
This course places students directly with organizations serving families and children in Tucson and South Tucson, including the Community Gardens of Tucson, Galeria Mitotera, UA Campus Pantry, Sahuarita Food Bank and Community Resource Center, Mission Garden, and The Garden Kitchen. The Spring 2026 course centers on food systems and food access as a social determinant of health, with nine required in-person community days.
Explore current health equity and social policy and programs affecting families and children as you are immersed in the diverse organizations that serve our urban communities. This course focuses on the challenges of food access, nutrition, and mutual aid, and studies community gardens as assets to promote well-being.
1 Credit, First 7-week session
Learn about the Family and Child Health in Urban Settings Service-Learning Course
Public Health for Community Wellness
HPS 497E/597E - Public Health for Community Wellness
This course is designed to prepare undergraduate and graduate students to with health promotion skills in lifestyle and wellness, including assessment of lifestyle behaviors with an emphasis on diet and physical activity, development of wellness-related programming, and curriculum and delivery of healthy lifestyle related programs to the public.
3 Credits
Contact: Dr. David Garcia, davidogarcia@arizona.edu
Skin Cancer Prevention in the Community Setting
EPID 497S/597S - Skin Cancer Prevention in the Community Setting
This course is designed to provide students in the healthcare disciplines with knowledge, resources, strategies and opportunities to communicate basic skin cancer prevention information to the public. This hybrid inter-professional course trains students in collaboration with the Skin Cancer Institute at the University of Arizona Cancer Center.
1-2 Credits
Contact: Dr. Meghan Skiba, mbskiba@arizona.edu
Case Investigations, Contact Tracing, and Public Health Response
EPID 497T/597T - Case Investigations, Contact Tracing and Public Health Response
This course provides students with the foundational knowledge of why contact tracing is a crucial tool during an outbreak or pandemic. Case investigation and contact tracing are proven public health interventions to mitigate the spread of infectious disease. Students will be trained in how to conduct a case investigation and contract tracing interview, preparing them to work as contact tracers for public health challenges and emergencies.
3 Credits
Contact: Dr. Kristen Pogreba-Brown, kpogreba@arizona.edu