Professional/Short course Introduction to Global Public Health

Content

The course syllabus typically includes:

• Philosophical and theoretical perspectives on health, illness and public health, including epistemological and ontological arguments and social theories of subjectivity/objectivity, induction/deduction, structure, agency, human nature and modernity.
• Philosophical perspectives on community and society: community organisation; group and organisational theory; political ideology (individualism, collectivism, communitarianism, market capitalism, etc).
• Political and ethical values in public health: e.g. beneficence, equity, social justice, altruism, interdependence, social responsibility, harm principle, freedom, risk, etc.
• Contributions of primary academic disciplines to public health, specifically sociology, ecology, psychology, education, political science, economics and biomedicine.
• Historical and geographic trends and developments: evolution of the public health field; rise and prominence of biomedicine; national and international political developments (including WHO); global public health trends.
• Determinants of health and illness: national and international trends; cultural, social, environmental and political contexts; key health drivers.
• Inequalities in health, healthcare, opportunity and social status: social justice; rights and freedoms; local, national and international classification and social stratification (occupation, income, ethnicity, race, culture, religion, generation, age, gender, sexuality, opportunity and ability); political and ethical debates on inequality.

Learning and Teaching

The module takes a multi-disciplinary approach, providing contributions across the health and social sciences to explore the nature and complexity of public health in a global context. The module is taught through a combination of lectures and interactive seminars, discussion and group activity.

Independent learning includes hours engaged with essential reading, workshop preparation, assignment preparation and completion.

Assessment

You will undertake one item of coursework comprising a 3,000 word essay.

Formative assessment involves small group workshops scheduled during the module that include small group seminar activities designed to enable you to interact, apply and exchange knowledge.