Module: Health Inequalities and the Social Determinants of Health


Lecture 1: Global Health Trends

 

This lecture will introduce students to a historical overview of development and health improvement. It will describe the current state of global health and development, including a broad description of the state of inequalities; and introduce students to the theories of epidemiological and demographic transition, and the limitations of these theories. Students will be introduced to measures of the burden and disease, and develop an understanding of the general pattern of mortality and morbidity worldwide, including the emergence of the ‘double burden of disease’. The critical inter-relationships between health, economic growth / development and environmental sustainability will be briefly introduced.

Compulsory Readings

  • Szreter S. Rapid economic growth and “the four Ds”: public health lessons from nineteenth-century Britain for twenty-first century China (Read it here)

  • Cook IG and Dummer TJB, 2004. Changing health in China: re-evaluating the epidemiological transition model. Health Policy 67 (2004): 329–343. (Read it here)

  • McMichael AJ, McKee M, Shkolnikov V and Valkonen T, 2004. Mortality trends and setbacks: Global convergence and divergence? Lancet 363: 1155-59 (Read it here)

Additional Readings

  • Omran AR. The epidemiologic transition: a theory of the epidemiology of population change. Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 1971, 29: 509–538. (Read it here)
  • Caldwell J. 2001. Population health in transition. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2001, 79 (2) (Read it here)
  • Grundy E, 2005. Commentary: The McKeown debate: time for burial. International Journal of Epidemiology; 34:529–533 (Read it here)

Additional Resources

Lecture Notes and Powerpoint