Public Health Policymaking

Full course description

In this course about public health and public policymaking students will become familiar with several interesting and interrelated topics.

First of all, this course will give insight in the meaning of health and public health, how (public) health can be conceptualized, how (public) health can be measured according to indicators and which determinants influence (public) health and what (future) challenges we face or will be facing in the area of (public) health.

Secondly, students will become familiar with the key concepts of public policymaking. In particular, the course will address the policy cycle (problem recognition and definition, agenda building, policy formation, policy implementation, policy evaluation and feedback) as well as the analytical guideline for health policy analysis showing the interaction between the policy actors or stakeholders, the policy context and the policy process.

Finally, students will learn to combine the knowledge gained under the first and second objectives. Concretely, they will learn to understand the implications of public health issues for public health policymaking. How does public health policymaking work in reality under crisis circumstances, like infectious disease outbreaks? And how does public health policymaking work in reality under non-acute circumstances where a shift in responsibility can be seen from government (central steering) to governance (decentral steering)? Special attention will be paid to health inequalities in public health, the role of genomics in public health and the importance of economic evaluation in public policymaking, raising ethical and solidarity issues.

The course is set up as a multidisciplinary course. There are contributions from political science, public health, medical sociology, health economics, health ethics and public health genomics.