Course syllabus for Applied Health Promotion and Prevention

Specific entry requirements

A Bachelor's degree or a professional degree equivalent to a Swedish Bachelor's degree of at least 180 credits in public health science, healthcare or other relevant social sciences subject area. And proficiency in English equivalent to English B/English 6.

That the student has completed courses with approved results equivalent of 45 credits at the Master's Programme in Public Health Sciences, specialisation Health Promotion and Prevention.

Outcomes

Upon completion of the course, students should be able to identify and propose suitable public health interventions, reflect on an existing intervention project, identify strengths and limitations, and to propose improvements:

Knowledge and understanding

• Identify a complex health intervention that addresses a predefined public health issue and discuss its public health relevance
• Identify potential risks in the implementation of public health interventions and discuss risk mitigation strategies
• Select UN global goals relevant for a certain health intervention and motivate such connections

Competence and skills

• Apply relevant theories, models and frameworks to an existing health intervention
• Critically review, identify weaknesses and propose solutions to complex public health interventions in terms of its study design, its intervention components, implementation strategies and evaluation

Judgement and approach

• Identify tensions between ethical dilemmas relevant for public health intervention and justify how these could be addressed
• Design a health intervention that is directly related to the negative consequences of climate change and judge it regarding its potential, strengths and weaknesses in relation to the climate crisis
• Assess an existing public health intervention in terms of its scale-up potential and propose suitable strategies where necessary

Content

The course takes a holistic approach to intervention development, implementation and evaluation focusing on health promotion and prevention. As this course aims to provide master students the knowledge and skills to integrate and apply what they have learned in the preceding courses, the content focuses on:

• Problem statement
• Formative research
• Use of theory in design and evaluation of interventions
• Scalability of various health interventions
• Research ethics
• The role of scientific health interventions in society
• Practicing scientific writing

Teaching methods

The course involves students' turnover of acquired knowledge in the context of an individual work and the development of their capacity for constructive peer feedback. The students will analyze an intervention study and support their peers through the process. The teaching methods are customised to facilitate a step-wise progression towards the course objectives.
Examples will be drawn from primarily international research. The course consists of a series of lectures, seminars and group work around specific areas of proposal development. Teaching is interactive and students are encouraged to participate and reflect by sharing their own experiences. In parallel with the individual course assignment, the student is required to document their progression in a logbook.

Examination

The examination includes a written individual course assignment, an oral presentation, mandatory peer-to-peer support sessions, and logbook. The individual course assignment is an independently written report that details the evaluation of specific aspects of an existing public health intervention identified by individual students. The students work on the written individual assignment throughout the course. The logbook is mandatory to complete and facilitates the mandatory peer-to-peer support sessions which are scheduled to allow discussions and peer-to-peer learning focusing on the course assignment.

The written individual assignment, the oral presentation and the peer-to-peer support sessions are graded as Pass, Pass with distinction or Fail. The logbook is graded as Pass or Fail. To obtain the grade Pass on the course the student must be awarded Pass on all graded course components. To obtain the grade Pass with distinction, the student must also be awarded Pass with distinction on the written individual assignment, the oral presentation, and the peer-to-peer support sessions.

Compulsory participation
Mandatory sessions are marked in the course schedule. The peer-to-peer support sessions; scheduled mandatory lectures and the oral presentation of the individual course work are mandatory.

The examiner assesses if and, in that case, how absence from compulsory educational elements can be compensated. Before the student has participated in the compulsory educational elements or compensated the absence in accordance with the examiner's instructions, the final course results will not be reported. Absence from a compulsory educational component may imply that the student cannot compensate for missed compulsory educational elements until the next time the course is given.

Limitation of number of occasions to write the exam:
Students who have not passed the regular examination are entitled to participate in five more examinations. If the student has not passed the exam after four attempts, he/she is encouraged to visit the study advisor. If the student has failed six examinations/tests, no additional examination or new admission is provided.
The number of times that the student has participated in one and the same examination is regarded as an examination attempt. Submission of a blank examination is also regarded as an attempt. An examination for which the student registered but did not participate in will not be counted as an attempt.

If there are special grounds, or a need for adaptation for a student with a disability, the examiner may decide to deviate from the syllabus's regulations on the examination form, the number of examination opportunities, the possibility of supplementation or exemptions from the compulsory section/s of the course etc. Content and learning outcomes as well as the level of expected skills, knowledge and abilities may not be changed, removed or reduced.

Transitional provisions

Examination will be provided during a time of two years after a possible cancellation of the course. Examination can take place according to an earlier literature list during a time of one year after the date when a major renewal of the literature list has been made.

Other directives

Course evaluation will be carried out in accordance with the guidelines established by the Committee for Higher Education.
The course language is English.

Literature and other teaching aids

Recommended literature

Brownson, R.C.; Colditz, G.A.; Proctor, E.K. Dissemination and implementation research in health: Translating science to practice. Third edition. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2023 - online resource

Additional literature will be provided prior to the sessions. The students will also have to independently search for literature that is relevant to their individual course work.