Current Challenges in Health

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Professor Anne Miles
• Assessment: a 2500-word essay (100%)

This module covers the role of health behaviours in disease risk and examines different patterns of risk across different sectors of the population. It will explore the challenges in primary and secondary prevention of disease, looking at issues surrounding health communication as well as methods to help people make more informed decisions about their treatment choices. The module also examines issues in relation to living with a chronic illness.

In addition to general topics there will be more in-depth examination of specific groups, notably people with cancer.

Indicative module syllabus

• The role of health behaviours in chronic disease
• Individual differences and disease risk (eg socio-economic status, health literacy)
• Primary prevention: screening and vaccinations
• Secondary prevention: early diagnosis
• Challenges in communicating disease risk
• Health communication (eg fear appeals)
• Eliciting people’s preferences for different medical investigations and treatments
• Decision aids: helping people make better quality decisions
• Living with the consequences of decisions and medical interventions

By the end of this module, you will:

• understand the role of people’s knowledge, beliefs and behaviours in disease risk
• understand the role of primary and second prevention in reducing the incidence or severity of different diseases
• be able to apply knowledge of risk and health communication to evaluate the quality of health information
• be able to evaluate different methods of eliciting people’s preferences for different medical investigations or treatment
• understand decision aids and their role in helping people make decisions about their health
• understand the longer-term consequences of medical treatment for conditions such as cancer
• be able to critically evaluate the quality of health-related information.