SOCS243 - Global Health

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Incompatible

GLST200 Global Health

Unit rationale, description and aim

A range of professions require an understanding of the biological, social and environmental determinants of health and to encourage critical thinking in relation to the causes, incidence, distribution, treatment, and prevention of global diseases. The unit will examine global health inequalities and the burden of disease between rich and poor countries where population growth, ageing, lifestyle changes and pandemics of chronic disease manifest differently. It will investigate the diseases that are the leading cause of death globally and the impact of potential health threats posed by trauma and injury in war zones, major disasters, nuclear weapons and bioterrorism. Given that health is a fundamental right of all people, including the 370 million Indigenous peoples worldwide, the unit will also discuss the importance of major global initiatives to improve world health through vaccination programs, interventions to prevent transmission of infectious disease and healthier food and water supplies. The unit aims to explore global health as part of a broader understanding of health and societies. This unit includes a module on working with children, young people and vulnerable adults that will focus on responding to concerns and strategies to keep ourselves and others safe and support children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

Content

Topics will be drawn from the following list: 

• Biological, cultural, social and environmental determinants of health 
• Global stratification and global health inequalities 
• Communicable and non-communicable diseases 
• The role of vaccine and immunisation in promoting and maintaining global health  
• Basic principles of biostatistics and epidemiology 
• Global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents 
• Global epidemics and pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases 
• Hunger, food security and undernutrition 
• Child and women’s health; sexual and reproductive health 
• Culture and global health 
• Mental health, treatment and prevention including drug and alcohol abuse 
• Working in global health: challenges, risks and responses 
• The health of Indigenous peoples: challenges and responses 
• Potential threats to global health – irradiation, bioterrorism and disasters 
• UN Sustainable Development Goals and WHO interventions to promote global health 
• Building safe and supportive environments for working with children, young people and vulnerable adults. 

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

Global Health is a national, fully online unit. The teaching mode provides inclusive access to students located across ACU national and offshore students in the Thai-Burma border. Learning in SOCS243 is facilitated through online lecture material which delivers content and theory and formative online activities that require students to apply knowledge to case studies, consider real-world scenarios and develop skills necessary to analyse and interpret data and assess and evaluate health interventions in a global health context. Students will also apply their learning in online assessment tasks. 

This is a 10-credit point unit and has been designed to ensure that the time needed to complete the required volume of learning to the requisite standard is approximately 150 hours in total across the semester. To achieve a passing standard in this unit, students will find it helpful to engage in the full range of learning activities and assessments utilised in this unit, as described in the learning and teaching strategy and the assessment strategy. 

Assessment strategy and rationale

A range of assessment procedures will be used to meet the unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes consistent with university assessment requirements. The assessment tasks and their weighting for this unit are designed to demonstrate the achievement of each learning outcome. Students must submit and participate in all assessment tasks to pass this unit. 

The hurdle task is an online ACU module that all students complete that requires students to recognise the importance of, and policies and strategies for, building safe and supportive environments for working with children, young people and vulnerable adults. 

The Application of Knowledge Task (Assessment Task 1) will be in the form of a quiz or similar activity to assess for knowledge on global health including the application of tools used in analysis of trends in global health. This will assess learning outcomes two and three which relate biological, cultural, social and environmental determinants of global health and the causes, distribution, treatment and prevention of communicable and non-communicable diseases in low, middle and high-income countries.  

The Authentic Assessment Task (Assessment Task 2) requires each student to adopt the role of a global health worker in assessing and evaluating interventions and strategies of global health. This provides students with the opportunity to consider case-studies and specific health scenarios in a variety of locations or contexts. This assesses learning outcomes 3 and 4.  

The Analytical Task (Assessment Task 3) will be online analytical tasks and activities including scenarios, case studies and data analysis relating to the incidence of global health disease and illness within and between countries, including prevalence, trends, and burden of disease. This assesses learning outcome 5.  

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

 Birn, A. E., Pillay, Y., and Holtz, T. H. (2009). Textbook of international health: global health in a dynamic world, New York: Oxford University Press. 

 Crisp, N. (2010). Turning the world upside down: the search for global health in the 21st century. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Jacobsen, K. H. (2007). Introduction to global health. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. 

 Levine, R. (2007). Case studies in global health: millions saved. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. 

 Markle, W., Fisher, F., and Smego, R. (2007). Understanding global health. New York: Mcgraw-Hill Professional. 

 Nichter, M (2008). Global health: why cultural perceptions, social representations, and biopolitics matter. Arizona: University of Arizona Press. 

 Rosenberg, M. L., Hayes, E. S., Mcintyre, M.H., and Neill, N. (2010). Real collaboration: what it takes for global health to succeed. San Francisco: University of California Press. 

 Skolnik, R. (2016). Global health 101: essential public health, 3rd edition. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. 

 Ullah, A. (2016). Globalization and the Health of Indigenous Peoples: From Colonization to Self-rule. Taylor & Francis. 

 Wortley, R., and Smallbone, S. (2006). ‘Applying situational principles to sexual offenses against children’. In R. Wortley and S. Smallbone (eds.). Situational prevention of child sexual abuse. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.