Global health integrates expertise and perspectives from the fields of public health, medicine, epidemiology, health economics, behavioural science, environmental sciences and anthropology, among others. This course aims to provide a basic understanding of the emerging field of global health, its disciplines, principles, actors, challenges and opportunities involved.
The first part of the course will begin with some fundamentals and focuses on global burden of disease (aetiology) and determinants of health - particularly in relation to vulnerable populations. Further students will be familiarized with the academic debate about processes of globalisation and their impact on the access of people to health and the health problems arising from climate change. We will also look at the agenda for global health and the global health care aims in different settings. The third part will focus on human rights, implications for health equity and equality and how social conditions may influence health and health inequalities.
The fourth block will look at global health policy and the overall landscape, including reflections on good governance. It will address issues concerning the interplay between the main actors and institutions active at global level (WHO, Global Health Council etc.), national level (public, private, NGOs etc.) and local level (civil society, patients, communities etc.)– in the field of health. The ways in which this interplay shapes and impacts the functioning of health systems, how they are financed and questions of accountability are presented.
The course ends by looking at the complexities of global health and its relation to technological innovation, the role of workforce mobility and the impact on social, political and economic change.