Vitush Agarwal
Pronouns: He/Him
Research Mentor(s): Daniel Kruger
Co-Presenter: Redfield, John
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Institute for Social Research / Other
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Oral5
Session: Session 2 – 11am – 11:50am
Room: Breakout Room 5
Authors: Vitush Agarwal, Daniel Kruger, John Redfield
Presenter: 3
Abstract
Despite the growing support for medicinal marijuana and the emergence of laws that permit its use, students in Public Health programs across the nation may not be properly educated on medical marijuana. Our goal is to assess the coverage of medicinal marijuana in Public Health curricula. A spreadsheet containing all accredited Public Health schools in the United States was compiled. Each school in the spreadsheet was coded based on their availability of curricula pertaining to medicinal marijuana. This information was collected through public course catalogs provided by the schools as well as emailing schools when information was not available. Additionally, the political information about the state where each school was located was also collected in hopes of determining patterns between a states political ideation and a schools coverage of medicinal marijuana. It was discovered that with the information available to us, the coverage of medicinal marijuana was very minimal. Almost all schools did not offer courses on medicinal marijuana, however, few schools did cover medical marijuana within other courses related to substance abuse. There is a definite need for additional coverage of medicinal marijuana within Public Health curricula. The increase in support for medicinal marijuana must be accompanied with an increase in education in order to best integrate medicinal marijuana into healthcare.
Biomedical Sciences, Social Sciences
