Chevron Left
Back to Major Depression in the Population: A Public Health Approach

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Major Depression in the Population: A Public Health Approach by Johns Hopkins University

4.7
stars
375 ratings

About the Course

Public Mental Health is the application of the principles of medicine and social science to prevent the occurrence of mental and behavioral disorders and to promote mental health of the population. This course illustrates the principles of public health applied to depressive disorder, including principles of epidemiology, transcultural psychiatry, health services research, and prevention. It is predicted that by 2020 depressive disorder will be the most important cause of disease burden in the entire world! Every human being suffers from feeling depressed at some point or other, but only about one fifth of the population will experience an episode of depressive disorder over the course of their lives. This course illuminates the public health approach to disease, and the particular complexities of applying this approach to mental disorders, using depression as the exemplar....

Top reviews

DP

Nov 14, 2019

I very much enjoyed this course. you were able to present the idea of depression as a public health concern very well and I enjoyed the way the public health research methods were approached.

SR

Jun 24, 2020

Well designed course! It sheds light on the global burden of depression by bringing in historical and cultural aspects in such a simplified manner. Loved it!

Filter by:

1 - 25 of 87 Reviews for Major Depression in the Population: A Public Health Approach

By Vedika B

•

May 8, 2019

Good course.The only issue I faced was for the end peer graded assignments.

By Juntong M

•

Aug 15, 2019

I'm not a native English speaker, and I'm just a middle school student now, and I'm really interested in psychology. This course is very suitable for me. I can understand all the lectures well, and it helps me a lot for improving my English and understanding psychology. Thanks so much to the professors and every staff who provided this wonderful course to us, and also thanks to everyone of my classmates who had looked at my assignments and gave me a lot of useful advices. Much appreciated.

By Marc G

•

Sep 17, 2018

I really enjoyed the course -- it's very concise and to the point. Without unnecessary fillers or constant interruptions from quizzes, it's easy to stay focused on the learning. The two peer-graded assignments make sure that the knowledge has sunk in without it being necessary to quiz the students incessantly, as is the case with many other courses here. Although the course is broken up into 6 weeks, it can actually be completed much faster, as the different weeks merely show an overview of the different topics to which they're devoted. Even so, the materials contained within each week do have some depth and are a perfect starting point for people who would like to learn more about depression. The peer-reviewed assignments are also very practical and make students face complex, real-life situations. My honest thank-you to the instructors and all the people who helped put this course together!

By Minnie A A A L

•

Jan 15, 2021

This is a difficult course I never thought I'd graduate from considering I have no medical background, except a basic in Psychology during college and the Psychology course topics here in Coursera. The subjects are well presented. However, the assignments are really difficult as it requires program making for community projects on mental health treatment.

By Sehyeon A

•

Sep 30, 2018

Very informative, and well-structured. I could widen my understanding on depression in a macro-perspective way which is not a major viewpoint in mass-media and college lectures.

By Melvin R W

•

Mar 30, 2019

Exceptional course blending qualitative and quantitative, historical and contemporary case studies to provide a solid foundation to the subject.

By Daithi M W

•

Apr 6, 2018

Very interesting course. Good structure and presentation, too.

By Pablo S S

•

Jan 14, 2017

The second week, by Wietse Tol, is simply brilliant. I learned a lot about the etic and emic perspective on depression, and his insights about sociocultural factors are amazing. On the other hand, the last two weeks are boring and dull: they take the typical psychiatric bias and simply ignore any research compromising their orthodoxy (for example, Kirsch's studies). It would be interesting to include, as well, critiques to the concept of depression as well: there are transdiagnostic approaches expanding quite quickly, besides classical critiques of DSM categories. Overall, I would focus on the first three weeks and ignore the rest.

By Lindsay J K

•

Apr 1, 2020

I really enjoyed this class, and found it helpful to consider depression from some unique perspectives, none of which I'd given a lot of previous thought to. I found the assignment prompts a little difficult to respond to because each prompt included a number of different questions, and it wasn't completely clear whether the evaluators were looking for an overall discussion of the prompt topic, or a very specific answer to each question within the prompt. Thank you for this interesting learning experience.

By SANGEETA D (

•

Jun 6, 2020

I am so grateful to meet with all Professors. I like the course because it is the best online learning application and it provides a lot of courses including free enrollment process, all of the courses are very interactive and the quality of the video lecture session is very high and it is very easy to use. It is great platform for online learning. Thanks to all Prof. of Yale University. I want to attend for next course.

By Joanne Q

•

May 3, 2017

Johns Hopkins produces yet another amazing course - so well-organized and full of inspiring and enlightening info - thank you! I love how everything is meticulously cited and how the quizzes make sense relative to the content. The only suggestion I have would be make the visual aspect a bit more dynamic. Other than that, really another example of online course perfection.

By Nadezhda R

•

Dec 19, 2019

Studying now on Master of Public Health program at Nazarbayev University Medical School. I find this course extremely interesting and well-organized! Most importantly, course material seems to be valuable for my future career! I would like to express my gratitude towards the Professors of this course, what you've been teaching us is clear, logical and relevant!

By Melehin A

•

Jan 29, 2017

Thank you very much for the course. It allows to understand the peculiarities of the clinical picture of depression, as well as risks. Most useful what is paid to the issue of reducing depression at the population level. Thank you very much. Aleksey Melehin (Moscow)

By Ian C M

•

May 18, 2020

I cannot recommend this course highly enough. Whether you are interested in public health or not, I encourage you to take this course because we can all benefit from a better understanding of mental illness, and depressive disorders in particular.

By Nina G

•

Jul 13, 2020

The course materials were very easy to understand. The course was also very interesting, especially for people who want to work in the field of public health. It shines a light on how important addressing mental health issues is in our society.

By Stephanie B

•

May 1, 2018

Partially through the course and I have already learned quite a bit. There are many statistics so it is data based learning. Being from Montana I feel that everyone should learn about depression, how to combat it and how to recognize it.

By Dan P

•

Nov 14, 2019

I very much enjoyed this course. you were able to present the idea of depression as a public health concern very well and I enjoyed the way the public health research methods were approached.

By Srinithi R

•

Jun 25, 2020

Well designed course! It sheds light on the global burden of depression by bringing in historical and cultural aspects in such a simplified manner. Loved it!

By Saili D

•

Jul 13, 2020

Very well designed course that covers all the aspects of depression. However, as the data is based on studies from early 2000s, I would request the team to update the data from recent publications.

By Karen B

•

Jan 17, 2022

This course was both informative and interesting. It was a challenge, which required a lot of thinking and processing. I learned a lot. The essays were challenging also.

By Holly G

•

Apr 10, 2017

I really enjoyed listening to the lectures. The instructors are very knowledgeable and explain topics well. The assignments are in line with the course material. This course encouraged me to think critically about mental health, specifically major depression from a public health perspective. The reason why I gave it 3 stars is because I didn't find that there was much discussion on the discussion board. Each student just answered the question proposed by the instructor and that was it. There wasn't much discussion back and forth among the students. Also, I think the lectures are from 2013 so I am wondering if this course is being updated and covering the most current research in public health?

By Neecie P a D E P

•

Dec 14, 2021

John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Major Depression in the Population: A Public Health Approach course, for me, indeed added another layer of learning about mental health, and specifically about depression from a psychiatric epidemiology approach. My biggest take away from this program is the burden of disability associated depression, prevalence of mental and behavioral disorders, and the highlight of this course: stigma. I highly recommend this course for anyone interested in furthering their knowledge about the disabling effects of depression. Do yourself a favor for a reference source, and obtain the book for this course as it will provide a deeper analysis and conceptualization and risk factors associated with mental illness. Name of book: Public Mental Health by William W. Eaton (2012), Oxford University Press.

By Manuel M

•

May 14, 2023

Great course, but watch out: the assignments are peer-reviewed by other coursera users and it turns out that half of them is capable of reviewing and writing own assignments properly, and some just give you zero points for the assignment and don't even care to leave a comment or hint what they didn't like - so I assume these are some kind of coursera trolls who mess with other's grades. I won't take any other course that is peer-reviewed and will end my coursera plus payment.

I know this review is supposed to comment on the course itself, that's why I gave 5 stars, though the experience was disappointing in the end. The course is well structured and one of the best I've taken on coursera.

By SAUVIK C

•

Oct 5, 2020

This course, by Bill, Ramin and Wietse, is an excellent course with very nicely organised topics. A very detailed discussion and explation was provided. The classes were easy to understand. The assignments were challenging as well as fun and help to get a real life aspect. I would like to thank all the instructors for offering this course and coursera for this platform.