| Title: |
Public health anthropology: concepts and tools |
| Keywords: |
Qualitative methods
International / global
Anthropology
|
| Country: |
Germany
|
| Institution: |
Germany - Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, University of Heidelberg
|
| Course coordinator: |
Prof. Dr. Verena Keck
Dr. Aurelia Souares
|
| Date start: |
2021-01-25 |
| Date end: |
2020-02-05 |
| About duration and dates: |
2 Weeks |
| Classification: |
advanced optional
|
| Mode of delivery: |
Face to face
|
Course location:
Institute of Public Health
Im Neuenheimer Feld 365, Room 007
D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany |
|
| ECTS credit points: |
3 ECTS credits
|
|
SIT:
90 SIT: 70 direct contact hours (50 hours of lectures and 20 hours of facilitated group work) and 20 hours self-directed learning. |
|
| Language: |
English
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Description:
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
• Reflect on the use of ethnographic methods to conduct research in order to identify cultural paradigms and practices related to health and illness
• Employ an anthropological perspective in identifying problems and finding solutions to public health problems encountered in the field
• Apply the knowledge and skills acquired in class to develop research questions and define the methodology needed to do public health anthropology research
• Apply public health anthropology tools to collect and analyze data, including the use of software technology |
|
Assessment Procedures:
Course participants are expected to attend all teaching and group work sessions and actively participate in class and group work discussions.
Assessment of the participants’ achievement of the learning objectives will be determined by a portfolio submitted the last morning of the course. This portfolio is divided into five parts:
1. Understanding of public health anthropology (30 points)
Essay question (max 3 pages): How will I apply public health anthropology in practice? This essay question is unique for each participant as the specific focus is to describe how to apply the knowledge acquired from the course in the respective study plans/professions/institutes and how the ethnographic methods learned can be implemented”.
Expectations from the students here are that they can summarize some of the concepts and tools used in PHA and show how they can be applied to their work context.
2. Interview guidelines (20 points)
As a group written assignment participants are asked to develop an interview guide.
3. Focus group guidelines (20 points)
As a group written assignment participants are asked to develop a FGD guide.
For these two parts, students are evaluated on the introduction, a sample of questions and the structure of the guidelines.
4. Practicing Observation (10 points)
The aim of this exercise is to allow participants to acquire a flavour of what observation entails. It is about experiencing and self-learning. Students are expected here to define a topic where observation can be useful and reflect on the few observations they have done.
5. Data analyses exercise (20 points)
Participants will receive documents for data analysis using NVivo software. Exercises include importing documents into NVivo, creating attributes, coding, creating memos, creating reports and exporting them as attachments to the portfolio.
The maximum grade for the portfolio is 100 points. Passing mark is 60% for the entire portfolio (all five parts together). In case of failure participants have the chance to resubmit the portfolio within 4 weeks after announcement of results. |
|
Content:
The main topics to be covered in this module are:
Introduction to Public Health Anthropology (25 hours)
• Cultural ideas and practices relevant to health and disease, as a key to understanding people’s behaviour
• Overview of medical systems as cultural systems
• Explanatory models and health seeking behaviour
• Research metho Research methods in Public Health Anthropology (30 hours)
• Ethnographic methods as a basis for qualitative research
• Overview of tools used for data collection
• Preparing and conducting in-depth interviews and-, focus group discussions
• Practicing observations
• Analysing qualitative data using NVivo 11
• Rapid Appraisal Methods
Applying Public Health Anthropology in the field of:
• Reproductive health, malaria, diabetes, interdisciplinary and transcultural competences (15 hours) |
|
Methods:
Teaching methods will include a combination of lectures (30%), group discussions (15%), and group exercises on concepts, methods and data analysis followed by class presentations (25%) as well as case studies to illustrate the practical application of anthropological approaches to public health issues (30%).
Participants will work individually and in groups. Students will be divided in groups of maximum 4 people.
10 hours will be spent practising Nvivo to analyse data.
4 hours will be spent practising qualitative tools for data collection: In-depth interview and focus group discussion.
In all lectures, group discussion and group exercises have a prominent place and allow active students participation. |
|
Prerequisites:
English: TOEFL test 5.5 or IELTS 6.5 or equivalent language skills |
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Attendance:
Maximum number of students (including tropEd students): 25 |
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Selection:
First come, first served |
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Fees:
tropEd students: 1.000 EUR
General admission: 1.500 EUR |
|
|
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Major changes since initial accreditation:
Change in second coordinator (anthropology specialist), change in the assessment procedures to make the assignment more applied as students are now evaluated based on their practice of developing tools and analyzing data as well as reflecting on the use of public health anthropology in their own practice. |
|
Student evaluation:
“Content was good. Portfolio approach to evaluate the learning objectives was excellent.”
“Excellent in all respects - many thanks”
“ However, some lectures could improve on the delivery methods used...instead of focusing on theory, practical experiences could be drawn especially from the diverse background and experiences of the course participants”
“Way of teaching in this course is less interactive and less engaging mostly by anthropologist.” |
|
Lessons learned:
Portfolio approach for the assignment has been developed successfully over the last two courses.
Teaching methods in anthropology are very different to what public health students are used to, we had to adapt the methodology of teaching of our anthropologists to the expectations of the students and make their teaching more interactive and more engaging, using slides to present and more group work and discussions. This has been successfully implemented as well. |
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tropEd accreditation:
Accredited in Edinburgh, Sep. 2004. Re-accredited in October 2011 and October 2016. This accreditation is valid until October 2021. |
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Remarks:
Participants will have to download Nvivo 11 trial version before the course. There is a 14 days free trial version accessible on internet at the following webpage:
http://www.qsrinternational.com/trial-nvivo
Tutorial and trial version have to be installed on personal laptop the first day of the course and participants have to bring their own laptop.
The course is co-cordinated by Dr. Aurélia Souares (Institute of Public Health, Heidelberg) and Prof. Dr. Verena Keck (Medizinethnologisches Team, Heidelberg) and with the collaboration of Prof. Dr. William Sax (South Asia Institute, Heidelberg). |
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| Email Address: |
Grys@uni-heidelberg.de |
| Date Of Record Creation: |
2011-11-14 05:12:21 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Of Record Release: |
2011-11-14 06:18:46 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Record Checked: |
2018-06-10 (W3C-DTF) |
| Date Last Modified: |
2020-09-16 10:40:56 (W3C-DTF) |
