Improving Population Health: Theory to Action

Module overview

The World Health Organisation’s 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion is seen by many as a "gold standard" for Health Promotion. This module explores the principles of the Charter: that health is created in the settings of daily life; that improving health requires a comprehensive, multi-strategy approach across all five of the Charter's action areas; that improving health is a social and political process with the aim of increasing people’s control over the determinants of health and enabling health equity. The module explores the Charter’s holistic five action areas, from building healthy public policy, to developing personal skills. Students will critically examine both the theoretical frameworks that underpin these action areas and a range of interventions that can be employed by Public Health practitioners to improve population health and reduce unfair and avoidable inequalities in health.

Aims and Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

The principles and action areas of the WHO Ottawa Charter and how to apply and evaluate interventions as part of a whole system approach to population health issues
The major public health policies and other intervention strategies relevant to your own area of work and how to articulate the organisations responsible for them and wide range of partners to engage when working to address public health issues.
The complexity of the policy and health improvement context and be able to explain how policy is made and public health issues are identified.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

Develop, plan, implement and evaluate public health interventions.
Demonstrate academic and public health focused written and verbal communication skills and demonstrate communication skills to a wide range of stakeholders, interpreting and presenting data from a range of sources.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

Critically apply the principles of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion and its later developments, to a range of current public health issues, to improve population health and reduce health inequalities
Critically assess health improvement interventions and the underpinning theory, to enable you to plan and facilitate public health action across the five areas of the Ottawa Charter •build healthy public policy •create supportive environments •strengthen community action •develop personal skills •reorient health services
Justify the selection and application of interventions to improve the health of a population and reduce health inequalities

Learning and Teaching

Teaching and learning methods

Independent study (240 hours) Teaching 60 hours – 10 weeks of 6 hours using a range of methods including lectures and active participatory methods including workshops, student presentations, group work, debate and role play. Students will focus on a vulnerable population (building from Foundations of Public Health course) and consider the module theories and approaches through the lens of that vulnerable population, advocating for that population in class discussions and activities. Students will consider different topical public health issues throughout the module, to apply the module theories and approaches

Study time
Type	Hours
Independent Study	240
Teaching	60
Total study time	300

Assessment

Assessment strategy

Formative: Policy brief or critical assessment and presentation Summative: Assessed written tasks

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Individual Presentation

Assessment Type: Formative
Feedback:
Final Assessment: No
Group Work: No

Policy Brief or Critical Assessment

Assessment Type: Formative
Feedback:
Final Assessment: No
Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Assessed written tasks	100%