Program Overview

Healthy Living Practitioner (HLP) Program

The Healthy Living Practitioner (HLP) program is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the principles and practices of healthy living. The program focuses on the prevention of chronic diseases and the promotion of overall well-being.

Courses

• HLP 500: Upstream Prevention: Epidemiology, Economics and Policy
  • This course addresses current public health policy challenges and controversies, examining changes in health, nutrition, and physical activity policies in the United States over the past few decades.
• HLP 505: Health Harmonics and Communication
  • Students evaluate, synthesize, and apply the foundations and fundamental theories and practice of health communication and literacy, examining health rhetoric to better understand the conventions used to convey health communication.
• HLP 510: Preventive Health Screening
  • This course focuses on health screening assessments, disease prevention, and provides foundational concepts and tools needed for examining primary care- and community-based chronic disease prevention interventions.
• HLP 520: Nutrition for Healthy Living
  • Students gain a clinician's understanding of nutrition and chronic disease, nutritional assessment, and learn to provide guidance on health nutrition to combat deficiency and degenerative diseases, and when to refer to a dietitian.
• HLP 525: Exercise and Physical Activity for Healthy Living
  • This course introduces students to basic principles of exercise and physical activity in health and disease states, reviewing common exercise testing and physical activity assessment methods, and outlining exercise prescriptions for healthy and clinical populations.
• HLP 530: Behavioral Counseling for Healthy Living
  • Students explore theories, principles, and health coaching approaches to health behavior change, with evidence-based approaches to supporting health behavior change, including health coaching.
• HLP 535: Use of Technology for Healthy Living
  • This course provides students with the application of health information systems and informatics in tracking and managing Life’s Simple 7 metrics aimed at non-communicable disease prevention and management as pertinent to a health professional.
• HLP 560: Healthy Living Seminar
  • Students are introduced to basic principles of programming for healthy lifestyle practitioners, considering models of program management and exploring issues related to administration and management in various settings.
• HLP 590: Healthy Living Practicum
  • This course exposes students to real-life experiences in programming for healthy living, exploring models of management, development, and implementation of lifestyle and disease management and prevention programs. The course is graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis, with HLP 560 as a prerequisite.

The Healthy Living Practitioner program is designed to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and practices necessary to promote healthy living and prevent chronic diseases, preparing them for careers in health education, health promotion, and disease prevention.