BSRS 2010 Courses

Course 1
Research Methods in Climate Change and Health 

Course leaders

Bernt Lindtjørn, Professor, Centre for International Healt, UiB

Asgeir Sorteberg, Associate Professor, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, UiB

Ellen Viste, Research Fellow, Geophysical Institute, UiB

Thorleif Markussen Lunde, Research Fellow, Centre for International Health, UiB

Invited course leader

To be decided later

Short course description

Global climate change may lead to changes in long term climate and extreme weather events which may affect human health through various mechanisms such as changes in food and water supply and changes in the ecology of infectious diseases. In order to address the impact of climate change on human health a broad research approach including social, demographic, and economic aspects is needed.

The course will explore the links between human health and the earth's environment, and consider the implications of those links for human health in a changing environment.

The central objective of the course is to help develop and strengthen the student’s scientific knowledge on statistical and physical modelling of various climate and health issues.

Full course description and syllabus click here (PDF)

Course 2
Severe HIV epidemics and multidisciplinary research challenges in prevention

Course leaders

Knut Fylkesnes, Professor, Centre for International Health, UiB

Ingvild Fossgard Sandøy, Researcher, Centre for International Health, UiB

Invited course leader

James Hargreaves, Researcher, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases

Short course description
The course will put the main focus on research methods relevant for the massive preventive challenges related to HIV. It will involve a multidisciplinary team coming from epidemiology, medical anthropology, psychology, medicine and economy. The research methods being presented and discussed will thus be mixed. Examples of actual research projects where mixed methods are employed will be presented. Participants will also be given an assignment consisting of a literature review on “What works in prevention” where participants can work individually and in groups.       

Objectives
The overall objective is to present and discuss roles and research challenges in the generation of knowledge of HIV preventive factors relevant to local contexts (epidemiological, cultural/social/structural) and economic evaluation for fair and cost-effective priority setting.

Full course description and syllabus click here (PDF)

Course 3
Global Challenges in Reproductive Health

Course leader

Torvid Kiserud, Professor, Dep. Clinical Medicine, University of Bergen and Dept. Obstetrics and Gynecology, Haukeland University Hospital

Deputy course leaders

Astrid Blystad, Professor, Dept. of Public Health and Primary Health Care and Centre for International Health, UiB

Karen Marie Moland, Associate Professor, Bergen University College

Sven Gudmund Hinderaker, Senior researcher, Centre for International Healt, UiB

External lectures / keynote speakers

Marge Berer, founder and editor of the journal Reproductive Health Matters.

Mark A Hanson, Director of Institute of Developmental Sciences, University of Southampton

Short course description
Maternal, perinatal and infant health and mortality have been addressed in a number of global health initiatives, and are the targets of millennium development goals 4 and 5. Nonetheless, the morbidity and mortality figures have remained unacceptably high.

Global reproductive health challenges represent medically, politically, socially and morally highly complex phenomena. This course will demonstrate how diverse theoretical- and methodological approaches generate different kinds of knowledge to comprehend the complexity of adverse maternal-, perinatal- and infant health outcomes.

Aims of the course
To give a comprehensive introduction to the study of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity in a global context.

Specific learning objectives

• The student gains knowledge on global maternal mortality and morbidity related problems
• The student gains knowledge on neonatal mortality and morbidity and on foetal growth and its consequences for development and health
• The student gains knowledge on epidemiological-, qualitative (ethnographic and qualitative interviewing), registry-based and other methods with which to approach the topic
• The student gains insights into biomedical, political, economic, ethical and evolutionary perspectives with which to approach and view the field of global reproductive health
• The student gains experience in information retrieval and critical assessment of research results.

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF)

Course 4
Electronic mobile data in global health research: a hands-on course

Course leaders

Thorkild Tylleskär, Professor, Centre for International Health, UiB

Jørn Klungsøyr, Researcher, Centre for International Health, UiB

Weiqin Chen, Professor, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, UiB

Peter Wakholi, Researcher, Centre for International Health / Department of Information Science and Media Studies, UiB

Invited course leaders

Bruce MacLeod, Professor, University of Southern Maine, USA

Aamir Khan, Center for Health Informatics, Interactive Research & Development & Indus Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan

Short Course description

Implementation of measures to improve public health in most countries in the world requires good data either as a baseline or in the evaluation process. This course will give an in-depth coverage of new and emerging data collection and management tools using mobile telephones, handheld computers and web-based systems.

The course will cover all steps required from designing a study, setting up systems and including immediate analysis using open source tools.

The course provides an update on current state-of-the-art ways of collecting and managing data collected in health research in different settings, highlighting the special challenges in low-resource settings.

• Principles of data management in health research
• Paper and double data entry
• Electronic data collection
• Data management and security

The course is a course focusing on increasing the quality of field research data collection and management through the usage of the free and open source software packages including:

• openXdata, mobile and web solution for data collection and management
          www.openxdata.org
• OpenMRS, a medical record system
          www.openmrs.org
• OpenClinica, a clinical trial system
          www.openclinica.org
• R, a statistical package
          www.r-project.org

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF)

Course 5
Researching Children’s Well-Being in the Context of Global Inequity  

Course leaders

Gro Th. Lie, Professor, Research Centre for Health Promotion, UiB

Marguerite Daniel, Researcher , Research Centre for Health Promotion, UiB

Haldis Haukanes, Associate professor, Research Centre for Health Promotion, UiB

Invited course leader

Dr. A. Bame Nsamenang, Yaounde University, Cameroon, Human Development Resource Centre, WHO knowledge Network member

Short course description

We welcome students whose dissertations focus on children’s and young people’s psychosocial health and/or development in situated contexts. This will be a multidisciplinary course with the main focus on critical health promotion and social science perspectives. Different theoretical perspectives on childhood will be presented and discussed as well as different ways of collecting data with children.

The hope is that a multidisciplinary approach to children’s health and development using selected critical issues as points of departure will enhance the understanding of children’s well-being in the context of global inequity.

Relevant thematic frameworks

• The global challenges in achieving health for all
• Intervention challenges and international initiatives such as MDGs
• Equity in global health, interconnections between poverty, inequality and health
• Gendered aspects of global health
• Legal perspectives, including rights

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF)

Course 6
Globalization and Health

Course leaders

Gunnar Kvåle, Professor, Centre for International Health, UiB

Kristian Heggenhougen, Professor, Centre for International Health, UiB

Invited course leader

David Sanders, Professor, School of Public Health, University of Westren cape, South Africa

Short Course description

The module will examine the global policies and structures that affect health and health care and the international health policy agendas and how to study the effects of these policies and other interventions on health and health care. It will explore the complex relationships between health and health care and different socioeconomic, cultural, political and structural factors as well as individual characteristics.

The political, economic and other causes of disparities in health and health care between and within countries will be discussed. Focus will be on factors that contribute to inequalities and inequities. Structures, policies, practice and roles of major global actors in health (World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the donor community (in particular the G8), the UN-system (including the WHO, UNICEF), non-governmental organizations and private agencies) will be discussed.

The role of the state in responding to different international initiatives and the consequences on health and health care of politics and decisions of the major global actors will be assessed. In particular, the motivation for and consequences of the introduction of specific policies, e.g. Structural Adjustment Programmes, Sector Wide Approaches and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, will be examined.

Further, new Global Health Initiatives like the International Health Partnership and the Global Campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals as well as influence on health of policies in other areas will be discussed.

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF)

Course 7
The right to health in resource constrained settings: Rights, litigation, and social justice

Course leaders

Siri Gloppen, Professor, Chr. Michelsen Institute /Department of Comparative Politics UiB

Ole Frithjof Norheim, Professor, Department of Public Health and Primary Health, UiB

Henriette Sinding Aasen, Professor, Faculty of Law, UiB

Invited course leader

Alicia Yamin, Research Fellow, Harvard Law School, USA

Short course description

International human rights documents establishes “the right to the highest attainable standards of mental and physical health” but there are questions both as to what this entails in practice – what it requires in terms of the allocation of health care resources, particularly in resource constrained settings – and how accountability can be established to ensure that the right to health is respected, protected and promoted.

The course will approach the challenges of advancing the right to health in resource constrained settings from different perspectives. It is developed in collaboration between the Chr. Michelsen Institute; the Section for Medical Ethics, Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care and and the Faculty of Law, University of Bergen. It is linked to ongoing international research projects on “Litigating the right to health” and “The ethics of priority setting in global health”.

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF)

Course 8
Health and Recovery in times of disruption: Anthropological and historical perspectives

Course leaders

Nefissa Naguib, Associate Professor UiB / Senior Researcher Uni Global

Nefissa Naguib’s research interests include studies on tracing how histories of warzones and the wake of violence shape communities and cultures. A central aspect in her studies is women’s health and acts of resilience, recovery and efforts to rebuild lives in the Middle East.

Anne K. Bang, Associate Professor, UiB / Senior Researcher Uni Global

Anne K. Bang has worked on Sufism and Sufi rituals in the Middle East and Africa, including faith-based healing rituals.

Invited course leaders

Marcia Inhorn, Professor, Yale University

Marcia Inhorn's research revolves around gender and feminist theory (including masculinity studies), religion and bioethics, globalization and global health, cultures of biomedicine and ethnomedicine, stigma and human suffering. She is the author or editor of nine books on reproductive and global health, including three on infertility and assisted reproductive technologies in the Middle East.

Kjersti Larsen, Associate Professor, Department of Ethnography, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo

Kjersti Larsen has conducted extensive field work in Zanzibar since 1984 and since 1997 in the Sudan. Her research has focused on spirit possession rituals and their relationship to perceptions of health and ethnic identity.

Short course description

The course will have three thematic focus areas, examining global health from the point of view of both anthropology and cultural history; Body and Mind, Hurt and Suffering and Healing.

From the colonial era to the present, both the Middle East and Africa has been marked by changing modes of governance, wars and occupation, which in turn introduced new modes for perceiving the body, hurt/suffering, relief and healing. This process involves cultural negotiation, resilience, and, in some cases, the (re)invention of traditional practices.

The course will draw on history to explore the complicated encounters between European, Middle Eastern and African cultures of health and healthcare, and between modernity and tradition.

Course objectives

• Introduction to the subfield of health that is within the broad discipline of history and anthropology
• Understanding of how history and culture shape the way a society constructs illnesses and their medical approaches
• Explore various approaches to human pain and recovery from a holistic perspective
• Learn first hand about salient issues in illness and cure through community understandings and involvement

 Full course description and syllabus click here (PDF)