Postgraduate - UnitMPH5301 - Health systems and policy

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Organisational Unit	Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine
Offered	Not offered in 2015
Coordinator(s)	Professor Just Stoelwinder

Synopsis

The aim of this unit is to provide health service managers and public health practitioners with a comprehensive understanding of the major components of national health systems and how health policy is created to adapt and reform these systems.

Over 6 weekly modules students will explore relevant policy theories, stakeholders and policy actors and processes that address major health policy challenges. Each module includes an overview of the relevant concepts and resources, guided readings and online, instructor moderated, discussions of applied issues with student peers.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

Outline the key structural components of national health systems.
Analyse the structure of their own health system.
Apply policy theories to contemporary health policy issues.
Analyse formal and informal sources of information guiding health system and policy development.
Analyse policy stakeholders and their policy interests.
Evaluate the role of the policy making process.
Critically appraise existing health policies.
Compose arguments on health systems and policy development.

Assessment

Contribution to weekly online tasks (45%)
Not less than 2 written assignments totaling 3,000 words (55%)

Workload requirements

Off-campus: 20 hours per week for 6 weeks.

Chief examiner(s)

Professor Just Stoelwinder

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Public health

Co-requisites

Must be enrolled in courses 4528 or 4529.