Talk about timely: This year, students in Liz Winterbauer’s course “Epidemics – Dynamics of Infectious Disease” (HSCI 102) got the experiential learning opportunity of a lifetime.
Offered at UVM for more than a decade, the course has been listed under various names - including the more romantic, slightly ironic, “Epidemics in History and Imagination” – but the subject hasn’t changed. Students study the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time (an epidemic); and the pandemic – an epidemic that spreads over multiple continents, or worldwide, like COVID-19.
By exploring the spread of disease as documented in history and depicted in fiction, students learn how to make informed decisions related to infection risk on personal, clinical, and population levels. This term, the course inadvertently offered an added benefit – coping strategies.
Science of survival
“COVID is extremely destructive - similar to other historical outbreaks that this country has done its best to overcome,” said Ella Johnson, a junior health sciences major who is minoring in sociology and currently serves as a teaching assistant for the course. She says she found a sense of optimism with her understanding of the science behind an outbreak: “The course reinforced the idea that these outbreaks are inevitable and survivable.”
Johnson originally took HSCI 102 to learn more about epidemiology, the study of patterns and causes of disease in populations. She now plans to pursue a career in the field.
Black Death, Influenza, and The Last Town on Earth
A sampling of diseases covered in the course includes plague, which caused three pandemics - the most notable being the Black Death beginning in 1346; smallpox, a disease which resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths worldwide but was successfully eradicated in 1980; and influenza, which continues to cause pandemics every forty years or so. (The novel The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen, which portrays a town that tried to isolate itself from the 1918 flu pandemic, is required reading for the course.) COVID-19 is the latest addition to the disease line-up.
“What surprised me most throughout this course was how history repeats itself,” said Johnson. “Although infectious diseases are widely diverse, and the course of action to analyze and stop spread is different, the same few factors - community cooperation, enforced guidelines, trust in medicine and science – are always important.”
Johnson recalls viewing a Venn diagram (a depiction of all possible logical relations between a finite collection of different sets) that showed how social circles contribute to the spread of disease. Now, she adds: “I pay closer attention to the invisible factors that perpetuate this disease, making it a lot more difficult to make selfish decisions. If I took anything away from this class, it would be the hyper-awareness of my impact on my community.”
The Vermont Health Department reported 59 new cases of COVID-19 on February 17, bringing the statewide total to 13,996. Total deaths number 191, and fourteen percent of the VT population have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to date.
What is - and isn’t - safe
Johnson credits the UVM community for abiding by a shared set of guidelines in an effort to keep one another safe.
“The Green and Gold Promise, I think, had a major impact on our student body. I believe this school is filled with intelligent and genuine students who want to see the devastation of this virus dissipate, and they're willing to help in any way possible, even if that means just adhering to guidelines,” Johnson said.
Natalia Swack ’21, a biological sciences major, said she found the course to be an eye-opening introduction to standard protocols for outbreaks, and the methods that different countries have taken to combat COVID-19.
“I have become more aware of how politicized our healthcare system is, and that it is important to gather information from a variety of sources before deciding what is or isn’t safe, or recommended to do - for example when flying/traveling, going out to eat, getting vaccinated, or choosing PPE,” said Swack. “It is honestly quite frustrating to see how we have failed and lacked to improve outbreak strategies such as accessible testing, mandatory testing, accessible Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and paid sick leave, despite being one of the most powerful and wealthiest countries in the world.”
The course also helped Swack realize that people in the U.S. don’t have equal access to affordable healthcare, knowledge she says will inform her decision-making as she pursues a career in environmental and human health, or epidemiology.
Framing an outbreak
Post-baccalaureate student Lucas Bennett ’18, who plans to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry, says he is frequently asked about the COVID-19 pandemic by family and friends who are looking for advice on how to cope with it. Bennett took HSCI 102 because he was interested in disease and its relationship to society; what he learned, he said, was unexpected.
“I was very surprised to see how difficult it has been in the past to convince people to listen to logic and empirical data,” Bennett said. “As a scientist, I find it very hard to deny real results, regardless of how they affect my current situation.”
“This course has given me a new way to think about disease,” Bennett adds. “I have learned to look past the mechanistic nature of viral infection and start to frame these outbreaks using a wider lens. Incredibly important patterns and theories can be derived by looking at problems in new ways.”
21st century perspective
This wide-angle view is what course instructor Liz Winterbauer, whose professional and research experience is in epidemiology, international health, and healthcare quality improvement, intends to provide to her students.
Winterbauer has conducted malaria research in Kenya for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and supported health promotion and disease prevention programs with the Vermont and New Hampshire Health Departments. She’s also worked for two New England-based healthcare quality improvement non-profit organizations. Today, she’s sharpening her focus on COVID-19 testing centers challenged by insufficient resources.
For Winterbauer, teaching is an opportunity to share her expertise and experience.
“I teach on topics that I'm excited about and want to share with students - the same type of topics that encouraged me to enter this field when I was an undergrad,” said Winterbauer. “We need people educated and excited about public health to address the challenges of the 21st century, and I'm glad I can be a part of that.”