Community & public health promotion under the framework of modern pedagogical approaches

CIVIS focus area: Health
Open to: Bachelor's

Master's
Field of studies: Medicine and Health

Social Science and humanities
Type: Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP)
Course dates: 1 February - 24 May 2024

Community and public health become especially pertinent at the forefront of current social and political crises where systemic changes intended to improve the lives of patients and populations are needed. Therefore, we have conceived this course in order to offer insights and instruction on the pedagogy of community and public health - an investigation of the pedagogical approaches in developing alternative ways of understanding, representing and promoting health in a reciprocal, equitable and ethical manner.

The course is a teaching and disciplinary co-operation established by health promotion and social science/ humanity faculty staff members at three EU universities (NKUA, UAM, University of Bucharest) and one CIVIS African Partner (University of Morocco). The consortium is carefully set up by partners located in CIVIS partner countries undergoing a difficult socioeconomic crisis which sustains a number of problems that include but are not limited to poverty, health, as well as lack of oversight and inadequate support for refugees and/ or migrants. These problems pose serious threats/challenges to community and public health, wellbeing, and safety.

Thus, modern pedagogical approaches that promote health equity are vital for ensuring that future professionals are trained to recognize root causes of health disparities so as to address complex health needs. The main focus of the course is to equip students with:

knowledge that could foster their connection and interaction with local communities,
insight into what misconceptions need to be addressed to recognize root causes of health disparities, and
multifaceted disciplinary knowledge that could help them work towards promoting community and public health, wellbeing, and safety.

The course will consist of online instruction with a flipped classroom approach, five days of physical mobility with lectures and workshops, and networking activities that are essential to the development of a conceptually radical response that results in actual changes to community and public health promotion.

In the upcoming future, we intend to set the present course as a regular project within CIVIS, opening up the route to the creation of a CIVIS Open Course.

Main topics addressed

Bio-Pedagogies and Social Determinants of health
Community-Centered approaches for health and well-being
Community interventions for disease prevention
Health Humanities in the context of Community and Public Health
Ethnography and anthropological resources in the study of community and public health
Policy design in community and public health - Systems Thinking & Polycentricity

Learning outcomes

The course is intended to heighten students’ awareness and interest in a wide range of community and public health disciplinary issues, as well as to help clarify what is required to become part of a health workforce that promotes equity for all.

The primary goals of the BIP are to enhance university students’ learning about modern pedagogical approaches in health promotion, as means of establishing and improving health teaching practices with a focus on pedagogy, empathy and community-connectedness. Thus, the following learning outcomes are expected:

Understanding of a pedagogical framework for community and public health interventions
Awareness of the individual determinants of community and public health
Development of knowledge concerning the risk factors in community and public health promotion
Development of knowledge concerning the social, ecological and economic determinants of health
Awareness of the resources and policies for community and public health promotion

Dates: 1 February - 24 May 2024	Total workload: 90 hours
Format: Blended	ECTS: 3*
Location: Athens, Greece	Language: English (B2)
Contact: adania@phed.uoa.gr

*Recognition of ECTS depends on your home university.

Physical mobility

The face-to-face part covers the core training and will take place at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece - School of Medicine, from 20 to 24 May 2024:

Day 1: Course goals and theoretical framework

A) Presentation of the course program and planned activities

B) Presentation of the pedagogical framework:

Is there really such a thing as “one health”?
Bio-Pedagogies and Social Determinants of health
Community-Centered approaches for health and well-being

C) Group Assignments: Adolescents’ empowerment through community engagement in Public Health Interventions

D) Presentation of group work

Day 2: Community interventions for disease prevention

A) Presentations & discussion on medical and lifestyle interventions to prevent major non-communicable diseases of our times:

Preventing obesity
Can allergy be prevented?
Mental health prevention in the community
Cancer prevention

B) Discussion: Adding value to preventive measures through interdisciplinarity

C) Group assignment: Prevention Campaign design (gamified scenario-building)

Day 3: Humanistic practices in community and public health

A) Presentations and discussions on Health humanities in the community and Public health:

An Ecologically dimensioned Health Humanities
Use of Arts Therapies
'The Doctors of the Planet’

B) Discussion: How to integrate Planetary health and Health Humanities

C) Group work – How local communities can implement an ecologically dimensioned health humanities project

Day 4: Resources in the study of community and public health

A) Presentation of The effectiveness of the use of ethnographic research in community and public health contexts:

Ethnography in the study of health experiences in sociocultural contexts of illness and treatment
Ways of eliciting and collecting data, including the observation of individuals and groups of individuals, unstructured interviews, documentary analysis, and the use of a researcher’s field notes.
How can researchers communicate about the health problems and their inherent risk in order to help citizens best understand the phenomena’s implications and adopt as well as maintain necessary behavioral and preventive measures?

B) Group assignments: Discuss the origins of ethnography in the anthropological study of small scale societies and the subsequent application of the approach in hospitals and other medical settings.

C) Discussion to provide feedback and guidance to participants

Day 5: Policies and practices in community and public health

A) Presentations on new concepts and approaches in policy design and analysis based on community knowledge and involvement and their relevance for public health promotion:

Systems thinking
Interest group representation in public policy
Co-production
Polycentricity
Policy error/pitfall
Resilience
The importance of participation and deliberation for learning

B) Group assignments and discussion on public health problem definition and policy design

C) Closing remarks concerning the physical mobility component and its impact on the sustainability and future development of the course

D) Final Q&A session and end of the course

Virtual part

The estimated duration of the virtual component is of three months, between 1 February - 30 April 2024.

During this period, participants will have access to videos and recorded lectures, as well as suggested readings uploaded in the online course class (e-class) by the participating faculty staff members. Self-evaluation tests or quizzes, as well as Padlet assignments will also be used for facilitating learning. The students will be supported by the professors to understand the content of the uploaded material, complete their online work effectively and solve emerging issues.

The virtual part will be divided in three sessions. Each session will include topics and sub-topics that will be related to the course’s learning outcomes:

Session 1: Pedagogical Framework of Community & Public Health Promotion

Health Education: Policy, Curriculum, and Pedagogy
Signature Health Pedagogies versus Trauma Informed Approaches
Ethnography in the study of community and public health

Session 2: Case studies of Community & Public Health Promotion

Allergy
Nutrition & Diet
‘The Doctors of the Planet’
Ecological determinants of health

Session 3: Risks and Resources in Community and Public Health Promotion

The Importance of Public Policy in Health Education
Health Humanities
Systems Thinking
Polycentricity

Requirements

This course is open to Bachelor's and Master's students at CIVIS member universities with a high interest in pedagogies, teaching and learning as part of policy, design and implementation of Community & Public Health initiatives and interventions (Medical Science Humanities, Pedagogy of Health Education, Critical Pedagogy in the care of the self, Health justice and equity, Well-being).

Participants should have a good level of written and spoken English and German (B2 level in both of them) and critical thinking.

NB: Visiting Students - Erasmus Funding Eligibility

To be eligible for your selected CIVIS programme, you must be a fully enrolled student at your CIVIS home university at the time you will be undertaking the programme. Click here to learn more about the eligibility criteria.

This course is also open to students with the same academic profile, who are enrolled at a CIVIS strategic partner university in Africa. Please check here, if you can apply and this particular course is open to applications from your university. Successful applicants will receive an Erasmus+ grant covering travel and subsistence costs during their stay. Applicants should be willing to extend their stay at the host university for 1-3 weeks for additional research and/or training purposes.

Application process

Send your application by filling in the online application form by 7 November 2023 and including a Motivation letter,

indicating your expectations from attending the course.

All applications will be evaluatedd based on their relevance to the call and their submission within the deadline.

Apply now

Assessment

The methodology of the course is highly practical, with hands-on approach, and comprises of case studies, group assignments and discussion. Thus, the working methods that will be used within the course will aim at mutual learning and cooperation among participants.

Before the mobility activities, participants will be encouraged to spend time at their university to familiarize with the scope of the Course, its learning objectives and expected outcomes. With the facilitation of faculty staff at each participating University, students will complete short task assignments based on the online/ virtual learning material.

During the mobility activities, collaborative teaching and learning techniques will be implemented in order to enable participants to experience the value of the social dimension in learning/ training. These will involve group discussion, collective knowledge building, peer review and evaluation activities.

Overall, Short Quizzes Case-Based Assignments, Online Evaluation Testing and an E-Portfolio will be used as tools to evaluate learning and interaction that will take place within the course.

Blended Intensive Programme

This CIVIS course is a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP): a new format of Erasmus+ mobility which combines online teaching with a short trip to another campus to learn alongside students and professors across Europe. Click here to learn more about CIVIS BIPs.

GDPR Consent

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Nikolaos Papadopoulos is a professor of Allergy and Pediatric Allergy at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, and at the University of Manchester, UK. He has extensive clinical and educational experience in Paediatric Allergy, having headed for many years a unit caring for more than 7000 children with allergic diseases yearly, implementing state-of-the-art interventions and training medical students, resident paediatricians and allergists. His research focus is the interphase between infection and allergic disease, with emphasis in asthma exacerbations and food allergy.

Aspasia Dania is an assistant professor in Physical Education Teacher Education at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She has an extensive record of research publications in the areas of physical education and sport pedagogy, and her research interests focus on innovative pedagogies and qualitative research with a principal focus on equity, equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Jonathan McFarland currently works as associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and as senior lecturer at the Institute of Linguistics I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University. With a background in the Humanities for more than 20 years, he is the President of 'The Doctor as a Humanist', an International organization of students, scholars, educators and practitioners dedicated to the study, preservation and promotion of the humanities and humanism in medicine and healthcare around the world.

Mirela Cerkez is an assistant professor in Political Science at the University of Bucharest, in Romania. Her research interests focus on public policy, policy and program evaluation, governance, resilience, public administration, institutional theory.

Sanaa Hassab is a professor at the University Hassan II, Casablanca, Morocco. Her research interests focus on Cultural Heritage, Ethnography, Anthropology and Qualitative Research.

Șerban Adrian Cerkez works as an expert at the General Secretariat of the Government, Romania.