Introductory description

This module offers an in-depth examination of Sustainable Development Goal 3 (“good health and well-being”) and the broader field of global health. This two-term module involves a blend of conceptual foundations, case study analysis, and work with real-life qualitative and quantitative data. Teaching and case studies are interdisciplinary, drawing on medical as well as social science research. Both terms are alone-standing but complement each other.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The module covers four main topics within the subject of Health and Sustainable Development.
Following an introduction to global health and development in Term 1, we examine,

• Polity and Governance (Weeks 2 and 3): We explore the global and local governance (or absence thereof) of health, historical trajectories that define current governance arrangements and the structures of national health systems.
• Global health priorities (Weeks 4 to 10): We will study specific topics of global health within the Sustainable Development Goal 3 (e.g. universal healthcare, health emergency preparedness) and topics outside the SDGs that are likely to dominate global health agendas in the coming decades (e.g. multimorbidity, antimicrobial resistance).

Term 2 will first introduce students to cross-cutting issues in health and sustainable development to interrogate and challenge current global health practice. We study these issues in detail in the remainder of the term:

• Behaviour and Context (Weeks 2 to 5): Health policy often makes strong simplifying assumptions about human behaviour. We will explore ways in which we can conceptualise behaviour and analyse case studies on topics such as the politicisation of vaccines and the influences of precarity on treatment-seeking behaviour.
• Policy and intervention (Weeks 6 to 10): We will revisit the policy process underlying global health, in which we scrutinise discourses, power, implementation dynamics, unintended (and often obscured) side-effects of health interventions, and methods to evaluate health policy and interventions.

Throughout the module, students will explore case studies from across the globe, covering low-, middle-, and high-income contexts. Seminars will also emphasise the use of data to inform our understanding of global and local health problems.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Appreciate economic, social, environmental, and governance dimensions of global health issues
• Understand and evaluate un/-intended outcomes of health interventions and policies
• Develop balanced and theoretically grounded arguments on the potential and limitations of technical solutions for health problems
• Critically analyse the ways in which development processes and contextual change affect people’s health
• Apply qualitative and quantitative research methods to global health issues

Indicative reading list

A module reader will be collated and its readings published on Moodle. A sample of the reading is provided below:

Recommended Reading
Randall, M. P. (2016). A history of global health: interventions into the lives of other peoples. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Birn, A.-E., Pillay, Y., & Holtz, T. H. (2018). Textbook of global health (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Adams, V. (Ed.). (2016). Metrics: what counts in global health. Durham: Duke University Press.
Hanefeld, J. (Ed.). (2015). Globalization and health (2nd ed.). Maidenhead: Open University Press.
O’Manique, C., & Fourie, P. (Eds.). (2018). Global health and security: critical feminist perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge.
McElroy, A., & Townsend, P. K. (2015). Medical anthropology in ecological perspective (6th ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview.

Further Reading
Criado Perez, C. (2019). Invisible women: data bias in a world designed for men. New York, NY: Abrams Press.
Parker, R., & García, J. (Eds.). (2019). Routledge handbook on the politics of global health. Abingdon: Routledge.
Lee, K., & Collin, J. (Eds.). (2005). Global change and health. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Banerjee, A. V., & Duflo, E. (2011). Poor economics: a radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty (1st ed.). New York: PublicAffairs.
Joralemon, D. (2017). Exploring medical anthropology (4th ed.). London: Routledge.
Bulled, N. (Ed.). (2017). Thinking through resistance: a study of public oppositions to contemporary global health practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Research element

Research skills are embedded into the teaching strategy of the module. By the end of the module student will be enabled to apply qualitative and quantitative research methods to global health issues.

Interdisciplinary

This is an optional core module on the Global Sustainable Development course which adopts an interdisciplinary approach spanning the arts, humanities, social and natural sciences fields in order to engage with the major global challenges facing contemporary society, explore these 'big problems,' from a variety of perspectives and consider a range of possible solutions. Specifically, for this module, teaching and case studies are interdisciplinary, drawing on medical as well as social science research.

International

This is an optional core module on the Global Sustainable Development course which offers a unique trans-disciplinary and international learning experience that allows students to achieve breadth and depth of knowledge.

Subject specific skills

Ability to:
critically assess and analyse sustainability issues that need to be addressed, including real-life examples;

use and apply established frameworks and methodologies for analysing the impact(s) of a behaviour or process;

generate and evaluate different models of sustainable development to assess their likely impact;

actively implement or contribute to changes that promote sustainable development within the scope of own learning experience;

engage with real-life problems relevant to sustainable development;

use historical knowledge and an understanding of the consequences of past actions to envision how futures may be shaped;

identify the importance of empowering individuals and organisations to work together to create new knowledge;

employ leadership for sustainable development by challenging assumptions and negotiating alternatives to unsustainable current practices;

identify the opportunities to support and develop a progressive and resilient culture that encourages citizens, professions and institutions to put learning into practice.

Transferable skills

Written communication skills
Oral communication skills
Working with others
Problem solving
Information technology
Numeracy
Research across various disciplines