Course syllabus
Warmly welcome to the course "Health equality and the right to health" (MPH212)
Course dates: 1 November - 14 January, 2024
Course registration via Ladok: 25 October - 8 November. You will need to activate your student account. To activate your student account, contact any Student servicecenter or follow these instructions: Student account activation.
The overall ambition with this course
With the aspiration to narrow the gap in health disparities, simplistic solutions are frequently attempted but often fall short. The primary objective of this course is to cultivate a heightened awareness of the complexity underlying the emergence and persistence of health inequalities. It also aims to provide you with a fundamental comprehension of how the lens of human rights and the right to health contribute understanding of and action on health inequalities.
While the course delves into intricate subjects, it's crucial to understand its limitation to 7.5 credits. The goal isn't to make you experts in every aspect covered. Instead, it provides a glimpse into the challenges, encouraging a critical approach. A foundation that is essential for upcoming courses and your future career in public health.
A brief description of the course
The course gives a more critical and deeper understanding of how different concepts, theories, and frameworks add to our understanding of health inequalities but also affect our view on potential action. It also introduces health as a human right and legal concept and elaborates on potential challenges and opportunities in public health priorities, particularly policy, and interventions for mitigating health inequalities.
The course is planned with student-centred learning in focus which will require students to take active part, not only in reading the literature and attending lectures, but to relate to, and reflect on ones own experiences and engage in joint discussions and workshops. More on the pedagogical approach and structure can be find under the module "Course information".
Based on the learning objectives (see course syllabus) the course has three main themes:
Conceptual and theoretical perspectives on health inequalities: The first theme introduces a deeper understanding of how different perspectives contribute to our understanding of health inequalities but also how perspective and foci guide the logic of public health priorities and action in relation to health inequalities. The areas in focus will be power, vulnerability, behavior, politics, gender, and the Commercial determinants of health.
Human rights and the right to health: The second theme introduces the right to health as a legal standard, non-discrimination and the rights of specific groups, and potential tensions between human rights and public health goals.
Theory and standards into practice: This theme introduces students to the challenges and opportunities involved in translating theories, concepts on health inequalities, including human rights theory and legal standards, into public health policy and interventions.
CANVAS
Due to the revision of this course from the version last year some modules in the course a not finalized and some changes will occur. However, the schedule, readings and the modules in the first course week will not change.
Contact information
Course leader: Jesper Löve jesper.love@gu.se
Course administrator: Usva Salvi publichealth@medicin.gu.se Please write the course code in the subject line when sending an e-mail!
Course information
- Course syllabus
- Course literature Note that the article by Kelly et al is replaced by an article by Shove et al (see below)
- Preliminary schedule (subject to change, please pay attention to announcements on Canvas)
NOTE, new reference replacing Kelly ey al: Blue, S., Shove, E., Carmona, C., & Kelly, M. P. (2016). Theories of practice and public health: understanding (un) healthy practices. Critical public health, 26(1), 36-50.
MPH212 is a required course as part of the Masters in Public Health Science, and is also available as a stand alone course. To make it possible for program students to also follow mph213 these courses will run in parallell every second week (see preliminary schedule above but also the "Weekly timetable in the module "Course information").
