Prospectus

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Primary and Secondary Prevention Strategies

Course
2015-2016

Tags

GPH

Admissions requirements

Recommended: Health, Society and History and one of the following courses: Health Psychology or Social Determinants of Health.

Description

Prevention strategies in global public health refers to actions to prevent the occurrence of a disease (Primary Prevention) or actions to arrest the progress and reduce the consequences of a disease once established (Secondary Prevention). Lifestyle factors as smoking, dietary habits, unsafe sex and physical activity but also social factors as poverty, social support and health care facilities are important determinants of health and disease. Hence, promoting healthy life styles combined with improving living and working conditions and health care facilities play an important role in public health interventions. During this course attention will be given to the development of theory-based and evidence-based interventions applied to health promotion, prevention of both communicable and non-communicable diseases and tackling socioeconomic inequalities in health. In addition to this, key strategies in disease prevention such as vaccination and screening programs will be discussed.

Course objectives

At the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Recognize social and behavioral determinants of common communicable and non-communicable diseases.

  • Apply specific models related to health behavior and its determinants.

  • Identify prevention policies for major global public health challenges

  • Apply methods in primary and secondary prevention research.

  • Debate the implementation of specific screening and vaccination programs.

  • Design their own theory-based and evidence-based health promotion program.

Timetable

Once available, timetables will be published here.

Mode of instruction

Lectures
Exercises
Student presentations

Assessment

Individual assignments about screening : 20%
Group assignment: Intervention mapping: 30% (individual performance will be reflected)
Presentation: 15%
In-class participation: 5%
Final exam: 30%

Blackboard

There will be a Blackboard site available for this course. Students will be enrolled at least one week before the start of classes.

Reading list

  • Bartholomew LK, Parcel SG, Kok G, Gottlieb NH, Fernandex ME. Planning Health Promotion Programs. An Intervention Mapping Approach. 3rd edition. 2011 John Wiley and Sons Ltd.

  • Penny Webb and Chris Bain, Essential Epidemiology: An Introduction for Students and Health Professionals. Chapter 14 and 15. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press.

Registration

This course is open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Registration is coordinated by the Curriculum Coordinator. Interested non-LUC students should contact course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.

Contact

Dr. Jessica Kiefte-de Jong, j.c.kiefte@luc.leidenuniv.nl.