Aims
Global health is characterised by placing health as an intrinsic social goal, and by aiming to justly and equitably generate health within and across populations. It consists of the international, transdisciplinary, and inter-sectoral research, knowledge, and policies for understanding health determinants and improving population health from a local to a planetary scale. It is an endeavour that requires the fostering of cross-country learning networks and communities of practice, including through building supportive institutions. The Global Health theme will provide students with the knowledge and analytical skills to understand global drivers of ill-health and inequity, and will enable them to contribute to sustainably improving health and reducing inequality worldwide. Students will be equipped to participate actively in the development of global health itself, while encouraging boundary-spanning practices.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
- Examine the distribution, trends, and determinants of the burden of disease globally, and within and between populations
- Demonstrate the interrelationships between human and planetary health, including climate change, and explore the opportunities and challenges of sustainable development
- Provide a critical account, historical and contemporary, of the transnational determinants, including political, commercial and economic, of health and health inequity at a global level
- Discuss the complexity, achievements and shortcomings of current global health governance, and identify potential career opportunities within relevant institutions
- Compare and contrast different types of health systems globally and discuss the challenges and opportunities for universal health coverage
- Apply systems thinking to the analysis of global health problems and to strategies that address these problems
- Provide a critical account of the emerging field of global health and detail debates over what it implies and endorses.
Theme essential modules
- Globalisation and global health governance
- Health systems for all
- Health economics
- Planetary and human health
Plus two other modules, chosen from any theme, from the full list of student-selected modules.