FHV330 Public Health Science

Credits (ECTS):15

Course responsible:Marte Karoline Råberg Kjøllesdal

Campus / Online:Taught campus Ås

Teaching language:Norsk

Course frequency:Annually.

Nominal workload:Totally 375 hours. Organized teaching: 14 days * 5-6 h = 75 hours. Obligatory activity: 40 h. Preparation and following up work of the organized teaching and self study: 260 hours.

Teaching and exam period:The course starts up in late August and runs through the autumn parallel.

About this course

Concepts and perspectives in public health science and disease prevention and health promotion work in public health (PH) work. Factors affecting PH including social inequalities in health, and national public health challenges in the past, present and the future. Social, cultural and environmental factors affecting PH and theories and models for health behavior. Regulations and strategies guiding PH work and an overview of actors in Norway. Ethics in PH work and basic skills in literature search and academic writing. Classroom teaching as base for further independent studies. Obligatory Activity (individual assignment) and oral exam.

Learning outcome

Main goal: The subject should provide basic understanding of public health science, an overview of public health work on a locally, national and central level, and provide the students with skills of discussing issues in public health academically.

After passing the exam the student should:

(Knowledge)

- know the concepts of health and illness, and argue for individual, population and environment perspectives in health promoting and preventive work.

- describe public health, and determinants of health related to the society, culture and environment and individual factors in a perspective of the past, today and the future

- be able to describe and make use of central political, economic and legal decisions, relevant for public health work in the public sector, work and civil society.

- discuss the importance of integration and participation for health and describe examples of political prioritized efforts in the field.

- reflect on "nature" and "environment" as concepts and how the physical environment and climate change affects public health.

(Skills)

- discuss theories and models for behavioral change health in promotion and preventive work.

- through a practical example describe how to plan, carry out and evaluate interventions based on the responsibilities shared by the public and the private sector, including voluntary organizations, and how cost/benefit and cost/effect relevant for the intervention is calculated.

(General competence)

- be able to identify and evaluate ethical challenges and dilemmas in a human right perspective in public health

- know how to search for and present scientific and other public documentation to enlighten a public health relevant topic..

  • Lectures, group work, self study, obligatory individual assignment on literature search and reporting on findings.
  • Teachers are available at the workshops and through Canvas.
  • Relevant studies required for acceptance for M-FOL / M-FOL-DEL
  • Oral exam (up to 1/2 hour) counts for 100% of grade. A-F

    Oral exam Grading: Letter grades
  • An external examiner evaluates the oral exam.
  • Individual assignment on literature search
  • 14 full-day seminar split on 5 weeks.
  • M-FOL / M-FOL-DEL
  • Minimum requirements for entrance to higher education in Norway (generell studiekompetanse).