Public Health Practice

The course Public Health Practice is meant for future public health professionals aiming at a career in the public or private sector in western and non-western countries. In this course students become familiar with the public health system, and learn more specifically how public health policy is made and how they can support the policy-making process, and how policies and programmes can be implemented and evaluated in a real-life setting. 
In our society, health is an important asset as it is a resource for everyday living. It enables children to go to school and develop their potential, adults to work and care for their families and elderly to remain involved in society. Health is more than an individual matter; the functioning of our society depends on healthy people. Therefore, it is of great importance to optimize health and its related lifestyle factors (healthy diet, moderate alcohol consumption, non-smoking, physical activity etc.). Analysis of major health problems and their determinants is needed to develop public health policies and programmes that intend to result in considerable health gains in the long term.
In this course methods will be introduced and explained that support the planning, implementation and evaluation of public health policies and programmes. Relevant theories, concepts and tools will be presented, and illustrated with practical examples. For this purpose, the public health cycle will be introduced. This planning model provides a basic frame¬work for professionals working in the field of public health that can be used for planning, implementing and evaluating policies and programmes. This planning model includes the following seven steps: conduct a needs assessment, support priority setting, formulate aims and objectives, construct a logic model, develop an evaluation plan, perform quality control, and analyse processes and outcomes. During the lectures, training modules and group work you are learning to work with the public health cycle by practicing these seven steps.

After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:

• Summarize how health problems will be identified, addressed and evaluated in a specific public health system
• Design a step-by-step plan of action for tackling a health problem
• Prioritize determinants and policy instruments related to health problems
• Develop an evaluation plan for public health programs conducted in a real-life setting

Assumed Knowledge:
HNH24806 Introduction to Epidemiology and Public Health.