Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines health policy in Canada from a range of perspectives with a focus on the rapidly changing and increasingly politicized health care environment in which efficiency, evidence, and social justice are important driving forces. Compares the Canadian system to the US and other international jurisdictions.

COURSE DETAILS:

Global and public health has been at the forefront of public policy debates around the world, driven largely by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this attention, health inequities continue to persist within and across countries. This course wades into this topic by orienting students to the frameworks available for explaining the root causes of (ill) health and the actors and factors shaping health and healthcare policy in Canada (with some consideration of global policy contexts). With this foundation, we spend the rest of the course exploring, debating, and analyzing salient health and healthcare policy issues in Canada and the world. We consider the potential policy solutions and implications their implications for addressing (in)equitable health outcomes. In doing so, students will become acquainted with the historical, political, and economic factors that shape health policy and practice and learn how to evaluate the roles and influences of key actors and institutions. Students will be encouraged to explore how health is inherently connected to other policy areas, such as environment, labor, immigration, trade, and technology. We will undertake this learning through a mix of lectures, class discussions, small group activities, and engaging assignments. In this way, students will practice synthesizing and weighing in on key debates in various health policy areas and begin imagining and proposing solutions to contemporary health challenges. Students from diverse academic and personal backgrounds are welcome in and will enrich this course.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

At the end of this course, students will be able to:
1. Analyze the historical, political and economic factors that shape Canadian health and healthcare policy and practice.
2. Identify and evaluate the roles and influences of key actors, ideas, and institutions in Canadian health and healthcare policy making process at multiple levels of governance.
3. Appraise and synthesize key debates in health and healthcare policy and recognize the diversity of perspectives in these debates.
4. Propose solutions to address existing and contemporary health and healthcare challenges through policy approaches.
5. Apply critical thinking and communication skills to engage in constructive dialogue and collaboration with diverse stakeholders in health or healthcare policy.

The skills and knowledge cultivated in pursuit of these learning goals are relevant for careers in government (health departments and foreign affairs), law, journalism (global health reporting), research, and the nongovernmental sector (human rights and health NGOs and advocacy).

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: