Public Health (SVUEK_083)
About Study Course
Objective
The aim of the course is to provide knowledge in the main concepts of public health, necessary to understand health information and evidence based public health practice.
Prerequisites
1. To understand public health problems and the role of epidemiology in health sciences, prior knowledge of normal and pathological physiology and/or propaedetics is required;
2. In order for the student to be able to apply health measurements and epidemiology methods in practice, prior knowledge in mathematical statistics and computer skills are required;
3. To read and analyze modern literature in public health and epidemiology, English language skills are required.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the course students will be able to:
• define concepts of health, public health;
• define concepts of disease prevention and health promotion in relation to social work;
• list the fundamental principles of disease screening;
• list the main demographic indicators and explain relationship between demography and public health;
• describe theories in social medicine and to list social determinants of health;
• explain the meaning of evidence-based public health;
• identify sources and methods for collecting health information; to describe their advantages and limitations;
• list and describe epidemiological study designs, and to identify factors which may affect validity of epidemiological studies;
• list and describe fundamental issues of health care organisation and financing.
On successful course completion students will be able to:
• interpret the concepts of health and disease in the professional context;
• demonstrate determinants of health with examples, including the social determinants of health;
• illustrate with examples approaches to health promotion and disease prevention in relation to social work;
• calculate basic epidemiological measures;
• distinguish between crude, specific and standardized rates;
• differentiate designs of epidemiological studies;
• find relevant health information and critically assess how reliable it is;
• use epidemiological and demographic measures to illustrate public health problems.
• debate about public health problems and potential solutions in the professional context;
• evaluate public health problem by using suitable data sources and indicators;
• assess differences in health problems between populations or changes over time.
Study course planning
| Study programme | Study semester | Program level | Study course category | Lecturers | Schedule |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orthotics and Prosthetics, RFO | 6 | Bachelor’s | Required | ||
| Social work, SDN | 4 | Bachelor’s | Required | ||
| Social work, SD | 4 | Bachelor’s | Required |
