General provisions

The course has been developed as part of Uppsala University's work within EIT Health and aims for students and professionals in the wider public health area, e.g., medicine, caring sciences, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy, and psychology. During the course, the students will plan, manage and evaluate a relevant public health activity through work in interprofessional groups.

Entry requirements

120 credits

Learning outcomes

This interprofessional course aims for the students to acquire competencies to identify needs, generate ideas, and test solutions to meet public health challenges through patient and public involvement, as well as interprofessional collaboration. The students are expected to acquire knowledge, tools, and practical experience in a 'real-world' public health activity to strengthen people's empowerment.

After completing the course, the students are expected to be able to:

Knowledge and understanding

• Explain how collaboration affects learning, as well as how  collaboration is affected by conflict, power relations, and group dynamics.
• Explain how patient and public involvement can be applied in the field of public health. 

Skills and abilities

• Plan, manage, and evaluate interprofessional collaboration.
• Involve and engage citizens in public health challenges.
• Plan and use written and oral communication and to spread knowledge and motivate health behaviour changes.   

Judgement and approach

• Use formative and summative evaluation tools to measure and evaluate process quality and outcomes of patient and public involvement activities.
• Demonstrate an ethical and empathetic approach towards citizens.

Content

The course deals with prerequisites of running an effective and successful project and solving public health challenges through patient and public involvement, and interprofessional collaboration. Practical and theoretical tools for collaboration, needs identification, idea generation, testing, and understanding how to develop and implement interventions are trained through work in interprofessional groups. Core competencies in process design and facilitation are developed through practical training in combination with theoretical reflection and feedback.

During the course, the students develop a 'real-world' public health activity carried out at a larger public event, where the students and the public meet to discuss challenges and needs for improving public health. The course also deals with how and why patient and public involvement is important when developing meaningful solutions to public health challenges. In addition, the students develop knowledge in both oral and written communication, on how best to spread knowledge, and motivate health behavior changes.

Instruction

The course consists of lectures, seminars, and group exercises, as well as public health activities where the students and the public meet at a major public event. The course runs at half-speed.

Assessment

Formative assessments will be carried out through self-evaluations and feedback from fellow students and course leaders. The students will systematically log their reflections to be able to follow their learning.

The students will also be examined through individual written reports where they will reflect on the collaboration process and the public health activity based on the course literature, lectures, and seminars.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the disability coordinator of the university.

Participation in seminars, group exercises, and the public health activity are mandatory.