The Global Diseases Masterclass is part of the full-degree Masters of Public Health that the School of Public Health. By the end of this specialisation, our aim is that students will be able to critically apply epidemiological concepts to major global diseases and be able to appraise and recommend policy options to combat them.
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In this course, we will introduce students to the most important trends and pattern in health and disease on a global scale. We will look at how health has improved over time, examine the trends for the future and look at between and within-country inequality in health. We will look at the methods that lie behind those statistics and think about different ways in which health can be conceptualised and measured. The course ends by considering the reason that might lie behind the patterns that we’ve pointed out and introducing the distinction between direct and structural interventions. The course ends by considering the reasons that might lie behind the patterns that we’ve described and introducing the concept of structural interventions.
Course 1 of 3 in the Global Disease Masterclass Specialization.
What You Will Learn
- To describe the broad distribution and trends of major global diseases
- To argue the case for different ways in which health can be conceptualised
- To recognise the implications of the metrics used for different measures of disease and to critique the data that underpin these results
- To describe the drivers of the broad distribution and trends of major global diseases
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Introduction to Disease Masterclass: Disease Distributions and Trends
This module will look at the most important trends and patterns in health and disease around the world. You will see that health has improved enormously over time overall, but that these gains have been unequally distributed both between and within countries.
WEEK 2
Disease Estimates
This module will look at exploring different health data sources and how we estimate statistics for specific diseases. You will also learn how disease estimates are generated.
WEEK 3
Measuring disease
This module will consider the different metrics for evaluating health. You will also learn what DALYs are and why they are a useful metric for measuring diseases.
WEEK 4
Disease Frameworks
This final module will step back and consider what factors may underpin the patterns of health and disease that have been examined in this course. As well as things that directly affect the risk of diseases, there are deeper factors that make some people more likely than others to be exposed to those risk factors. This leads to an introduction to the distinction between direct and structural interventions – a theme that is returned to in other courses in this specialisation.
