Undergraduate - UnitPHH4102 - Contemporary and global public health issues

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.

print version

12 points, SCA Band 2, 0.250 EFTSL

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

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Organisational Unit	South Africa School of Health Sciences
Offered	South Africa First semester 2015 (Day) South Africa First semester 2015 (Off-campus)
Coordinator(s)	Professor Geoffrey Setswe

Synopsis

This unit aims for students to develop critical and analytic skills as applied to contemporary global public health and health science research. It provides students with advanced knowledge in specific areas of public health and health science from a global context. Seminars will focus on topics such as current public health thinking and practice and global dimensions of local health, as well as on skills in evidence appraisal and systematic searching. Students will be active learners through the presentation of two seminars to the class during the semester, and will lead the discussion that follows. Students will provide a written review of a topic that is related to their specific research project that demonstrates advanced theoretical understanding of the issues and research relating to that topic.

Outcomes

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

Discuss contemporary global public health issues.
Analyse the relationship of health policy matters to public health.
Develop a systematic search strategy on a specific topic based on a research question, encompassing the development of inclusion-exclusion criteria, a search strategy and table summaries of selected studies.
Critically review the scientific literature relative to a defined research question.
Prepare a report on a public health issue using critical analysis.
Mobilise quantitative and qualitative research skills to analyse public health issues.

Assessment

Assignment (20%)
Class presentation (20%)
Report on a contemporary public health issue (60%)

Workload requirements

Seminar and/or online learning activity (3 hours).

Chief examiner(s)

Professor Geoffrey Setswe

Off-campus attendance requirements

+ Self-directed learning activity (3 hours)
+ Preparation of research report (1 hour)
+ Unit assessment / assignment / presentation / report (4 hours).