Working Group:
Texts, Pedagogical Materials and Educational Political Recommendations for
Ministries and Departments of Education of all EU Members
Report of academic year 2002-03
Reporter:
José Armas, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España
From the Members of the
Working Group:
(see http://phoenixtn.org/thepeople.htm for an
updated list)
Mikel Astrain Gallart,
Universidad de Granada, España
Pilar León Sanz, Universidad
de Navarra, España
José Armas, Universidad de
Santiago de Compostela, España (coordinator)
Javier Cortizo Nieto,
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España
Lois Ferrradas Blanco,
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España
Juan José Gestal Otero,
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España
Francisco Rodriguez Lestegas,
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España
Larry Geary,
John Chircop, L-Università
Ta' Malta, Malta
Zuzana Jurekova, Slovenska
Pol'nohospodarska Univerzita v Nitre, Slovakia
Jan Sundin, Linköpings Universitet, Sverige (Member of the
John Rogers,
John Welshman,
Sonia Johanna Horn, Universität Wien, Österreich
Answers to the survey received
from:
Bernardino Fantini, Université
de Genève, Confederation Helvetique
Mikel Astrain Gallart,
Universidad de Granada, España
Juan José Gestal Otero,
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España
Larry Geary,
Mariapia Viola Magni,
Università degli Studi di Perugia, Italia
Øivind Larsen, Universitetet i
Gunnar Bjune, Universitetet i
José Luis Castanheira, Ordem
dos Medicos, Portugal
Jan Sundin, Linköpings Universitet, Sverige
John Welshman,
Elham Kashefi,
Hal Cook, The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL,
United Kingdom
Beate Mitterer, Universität Innsbruck, Österreich
Sonia Johanna Horn, Universität Wien, Österreich
In this report, we will
try to relate the result of our work as well as the process through which we
achieved it. We will start with a little historical journey, then will present
the results of a qualitative analysis based on fifteen programmes on public
health from several European universities and, finally, we will give some
suggestions for advancing towards a common perspective within the full
programmes on public health in European higher education.
From Evora to
After the Evora meeting (September 2002) our
work objective was very vague, as was the group members’ obligations. Probably,
the idea of analysing the educational dimension of
However, during the
winter, we started to make contacts through the network and things began to
change. From an initial excessively wide proposal that tried to look at the
presence of public health in several European higher education systems, we
narrowed our field of work to full programmes on public health in higher
education. There were three main reasons for limiting our area of inquiry:
-
It
is in this area that the collaboration between different disciplines (medicine,
epidemiology, anthropology, sociology, history, administration…) is producing
knowledge and creating a greater educational awareness of public health
-
The
number and provenance of group members -mainly from the field of history- did not lend themselves to addressing the
issue of public health in all higher education areas and fields.
-
Concentrating
on full programmes on health has the advantage of reducing the quantity of work
devolving on the members, and makes the achievement of precise results more
likely.
From this starting
point, we began to prepare for the
- The postgraduate and undergraduate
programmes on public health that are being developed in our universities,
and their main features.
- The strategies required to compile
significant information on programmes related to public health from other
European universities.
- The ways in which our working group could
co-ordinate a common dimension on these public health programmes from a
European perspective.
The
The design of the questionnaire
was the second task addressed, and this was facilitated by our analysis of the
programmes that are being developed in our own universities. From the contributions to the debate in
Santiago, the coordinator of the University of Santiago, with the valuable
assistance of the Webmaster, devised an initial form that was improved on by
the different members contributions of the working group[3]. This was one of the work processes
that gave us most satisfaction.
Finally, we considered
aspects of the pedagogical materials
that we should elaborate on during the next academic year. Here we only adopted
some general agreements on contents (Public
health in Europe: past and present) and the requirements that the
pedagogical materials should fulfil (to be suitable for use in different
European countries, to deal with common -European- and different -each country- aspects of public health, to be
focused on developing skills and solving problems, to adopt a dossier format).
In short, the
Compilation and analysis of full programmes on public
health
From May to July, we maintained an intense
programme through the net in order to compile from
Our analysis is based on fifteen programmes,
from ten universities in eight countries, which appear summarized in Table 1
and are available in the site http://sr.phoenixtn.net/webs/docs/ptnnet.sr/wg/textpedagogical/SCQForms/.
Besides this, we have received a certain number of home pages relating to
public health that has enlarged the Phoenixtn web site contents. We want to
thank all Phoenixtn participants who have spent time reading and answering our
messages and, specially, those who completed the forms.
Looking at the programmes of different
universities, we are struck by their diversity, a diversity that is created by
the Departments and Institutes that promote them, by the different disciplinary
approaches they adopt and, even, by the different denominations: Bachelor,
Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Master, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Doctorate… to
mention only the most frequent. We proceed to a brief analysis of these
programmes.
Table 1:
Sample of programmes on public health
|
Title |
Program |
University |
Country |
|
Health
and Society |
Doctorate |
Linköping |
|
|
Public
Health |
Doctorate |
|
|
|
Health:
Anthropology and History |
Doctorate |
|
|
|
Social
and Cultural History of Medical Knowledge and Health Practices |
Doctorate |
|
|
|
Health
and Social Change |
Master |
Linköping |
|
|
Health
and Society |
Master |
Linköping |
|
|
International
Community Health |
Master |
|
|
|
Public
Health |
Master |
|
|
|
Community
Health - Developing Countries |
Master |
|
|
|
History
of Medicine |
Master |
|
|
|
Health
Research |
Master |
|
|
|
Community
Health, Epidemiology, Control of Communicable Diseases and Mental Health |
Master |
Lisbon |
Portugal |
|
Public
Health |
Master |
|
|
|
Public
Health Science |
Bachelor |
Linköping |
|
|
Public
Health and Health Promotion |
Bachelor |
|
|
Considering their academic structure, we have three main
types of programmes:
a) Bachelor (3-4 years duration.
180-240 credits). They try to form professionals who work in the field of
health care and the promotion of public health. They provide a basic foundation
in health sciences and social sciences. The approach can be more oriented
towards the biomedical and epidemiological aspects (
b) Master (1-2 years duration, 40-90
credits). These programmes, directed at postgraduate students and in-service
professionals in different fields of health, try to provide a scientific and
professional qualification that enables the recipient to undertake the tasks of
health management in public and private institutions, like those that
investigate areas of population health. It is in these programmes that the
interdisciplinary approach is more evident. The most significant areas of
knowledge in these programmes are: medicine, epidemiology, demography,
anthropology, history, psychology, education, organization and management,
quantitative and qualitative methods.
c) Doctorate (2-4 years duration).
Intended to form researchers in the field of health, the doctorate programmes
offer more variety depending on the main lines of investigation in each
university department. We have three examples that represent three different
directions: Public health (
In order to advance towards common
perspectives in European higher education in the field of public health
programmes, we recommend the adoption of a common denomination and a similar
number of credits for the different types of programmes -bachelor, master, doctorate. In this regard,
developments are already taking place in many European countries in accordance
with the objectives drawn up in
The second aspect of our
analysis will be the contents around
which the knowledge on health is built in our programmes. Traditionally,
programmes on public health have originated in the medical faculties, with
their content based on medical knowledge, including theory and methods,
epidemiology and medical sociology, complemented with elements of social
sciences (economy, administration, communication…). In recent years, health
attracted the attention of the different social sciences (anthropology,
sociology, history, education, communication, administration…). Health became a
complex and interdisciplinary field. Health care is generating new professions
in public administration and in private companies and they need a more complex
and interdisciplinary education. Table 2 shows the similarities and
differences in the contents of masters’ programmes on health from eight
European universities.
Table 2. Contents of masters’ programmes on health in
several universities
|
Universities |
|
||||||||
|
Contents / Courses |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
||
|
Theory and history of health |
ü |
|
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
|
|
||
|
Epidemiology and epidemiological methodology |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
|
ü |
ü |
||
|
Qualitative methods / Health research |
ü |
ü |
|
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
|
||
|
Health care, administration and promotion |
|
|
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
||
|
Health and society (gender, age, class, behaviour…) |
ü |
ü |
|
|
|
ü |
|
ü |
||
|
Health and environment |
|
ü |
|
|
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
||
|
Mental health |
|
ü |
|
|
|
ü |
ü |
|
||
|
Demography and population dynamics |
|
|
|
|
|
|
ü |
ü |
||
|
Statistics and biostatistics |
|
|
ü |
|
|
ü |
ü |
ü |
||
|
Thesis / Practice period |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
ü |
||
|
Others |
|
|
|
ü |
|
|
ü |
ü |
||
Key
of universities: 1. Linköping / 2.
Medical sciences and
social sciences must make their contributions to these emerging areas of
knowledge. Those who take part in the
The third aspect of our work is
the relationship between the programmes on health and the demands of the labour market. The growth of health services in the
developed countries has generated an important demand for specialists in the
care and the management of population health, in public institutions and in
private companies. This type of work demands, in addition to basic knowledge of
medicine, epidemiology, pharmacology, etc., another series of skills related to
the knowledge of economic, social and cultural conditioners of the health,
social change and changing patterns of social behaviour, information and
education campaigns, design and evaluation of programmes, administration and
management, methods of research, etc.
As we have previously
indicated, the education of professionals in this field needs collaboration
between the field of the medicine and epidemiology, and the social sciences and
humanities. This collaboration is not always easy because of different
interests, and practices. Masters and doctoral programmes on public health must
attempt to promote this collaboration and contribute to a professional and
investigative programme that contemplates health from different knowledge
perspectives.
In recent years, programmes
have been launched (particularly at masters level) that are directed at educating
professionals in the health of developing countries. This type of initiative
can have a twofold benefit. Firstly, it educates and trains health care
professionals for developing countries that have to face important challenges
coming from populations with low levels of medical assistance. Secondly, it
creates the possibility of new markets for programmes that might be nearing
saturation point in the developed countries. These programmes must resist any
temptation to reproduce health programmes from the developed countries in
developing societies. On the contrary, they must be based on an awareness of
different cultures in order to provide knowledge and programmes on health that
respond to the social needs and the cultural systems of different countries.
Finally, we refer to the European and international dimensions of
the programmes. Most of the programmes, particularly at master’s and
doctoral level, adopt international and comparative perspectives on health. The
programmes include specific courses on the international dimension of health,
compare health care and health promotion policies and other aspects of a
European or international dimension. In many cases, also, there is
collaboration between educators from European, Latin American, Asian and African
countries, as well as the participation of students from different countries.
Some universities (Linköping,
We think that it is necessary
to exchange ideas and experiences on the development of public health
programmes in the different European countries. There are many ways in which
this can be achieved. Collaboration between teachers from different
universities, student exchanges, networks of cooperative work, etc. Concretely,
from our working group, within
Recommendations
towards a common perspective on public health programmes in European higher
education
In this section, we will try to
formulate suggestions and recommendations, directed to the Ministries and
Departments of Education of all EU members, to enable us to advance towards a
common perspective in the field of public health programmes. Our
recommendations, based on the analysis of the programmes we have compiled and
on the opinions of the experts in health who take part in
1. To develop common programmes on
public health at Bachelor, Masters, Doctoral levels, and to establish a similar
number of credits for each of them, so that they are easily identifiable in the
different countries.
2. To promote networks and contacts
among universities and institutes they are developing health programmes in
order to advance them and to increase collaboration.
3. To promote the compilation of
programmes on public health -bachelor, master doctorate- and their promulgation through existing web
sites on health and by other means within the EU.
4. To encourage programmes on health
that adopt interdisciplinary perspectives and approaches and help to break down
barriers between medicine and the social sciences.
5. To develop and promote public health
literature in the different European countries.
6. To encourage discussion and
collaboration among teachers and researchers in the medical sciences, the
social sciences and the humanities in order to identify the professional,
social and cultural skills that are required.
7. To create a central European agency
to evaluate, monitor and promote public health programmes in the different
universities.
8. To promote the European and
international dimension of health programmes, including comparative
perspectives on health policies, systems of health administration, health
promotion and health education campaigns, etc.
9. To support existing programmes of
collaboration and participation by experts from different European
universities, and to encourage them in universities and institutes where they
are less frequent.
10. To promote health programmes that
foster co-operation between European universities and those in developing
countries, avoiding the reproduction of European programmes in other countries,
and considering the specific social and cultural contexts.
11. To favour educational and
investigative projects on public health which promote the collaboration and
exchange of teachers and students from European and other countries.
12. To promote the exchange and spread
of teaching materials on public health in higher education, particularly those
which have been assessed by professionals in different universities, and which
provide a European and international perspective on public health.
