The Air Between Us
Illness and Inequality in a Connected World
GLHLTH XXX • Duke University • A Century Course in Global Health
The Air Between Us explores the human, environmental, political, and scientific dimensions of disease in our connected world. If you take only one course in global health during your time at Duke, this is the one you should take.
Through the lens of tuberculosis—a disease shaped as much by power and poverty as by microbes—we ask big questions about inequality, innovation, and justice. Along the way, students engage with core concepts in disciplines such as public health, medicine, anthropology, economics, environmental studies, psychology, and more.
We analyze data and dissect systems, but we also listen to stories. We build maps, question metrics, and examine how illness reveals the deeper structures of society. Students learn to work across disciplines, collaborate in teams, and imagine more just approaches to health.
Big Questions We'll Explore
Why do some people live longer, healthier lives than others—and what can we do about it?
How do identities, poverty, politics, and history shape patterns of illness?
What does it mean to "solve" a health problem—and who gets to decide?
How can interdisciplinary thinking and team science address the world's biggest health challenges?
Why Tuberculosis?
To help us tackle these questions, we'll read Everything Is Tuberculosis, a powerful and genre-bending book by author and educator John Green. You might know John Green from his bestselling novels like The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, and Turtles All the Way Down, or from YouTube, where he co-hosts the Vlogbrothers channel and helped launch the popular educational series Crash Course.
Everything is Tuberculosis is a work of narrative nonfiction that moves from personal stories to public health policy, from microbiology to colonial history, from grief to global inequality.
Each chapter of the book introduces a different facet of the TB crisis and in doing so, invites us to explore bigger truths about how illness moves through societies. Alongside this text, we'll examine case studies, maps, films, research articles, and local Durham data to ground our learning in real-world contexts.
In this course, tuberculosis serves as our central case study—a modern global health crisis with ancient roots. It's a disease shaped not just by bacteria, but by history, politics, inequality, and culture.
Everything Is Tuberculosis will be our anchor text—not to be read in isolation, but as a jumping-off point for deeper, more critical, and more collaborative exploration of the systems that shape who gets sick, who gets treated, and why.
Who Is This Course For?
This course is for everyone—whether you're majoring in biology, public policy, psychology, history, computer science, English, engineering, or another specialty.
You do not need prior experience in global health. You do not need to be pre-med. You only need curiosity and a willingness to think critically about how illness is shaped by—and shapes—the world around us.
Why? Because global health is everywhere. It touches how cities are built, how governments make decisions, how stories are told, how communities organize, and how people live and die. It affects migration, technology, education, and economics. It's not just about "over there". It's about here, too. It's about Durham. It's about your neighborhood. And it's about your future.