MAVIT5200 The Health and Welfare of Migrant Populations Course description

Language of instruction: English

The migrant population is today a growing and a young age group in Western societies. Not since the Second World War have such numbers of people migrated or having been forced to flee crossing nation state borders but also being displaced within the nation-states. People who migrate encounter boundaries that regulate access to nation states, social rightsand access to health care services. Using a contextual perspective, this interdisciplinary course explores theories, and empirical data covering individual, social-, political-, cultural-, and historical processes. A special focus will be on human rights violations in conflict and war, people who are stateless, and vulnerable migrants/refugees/ asylum seekers and how their situation influence health and wellbeing, family relationships and social participation. 

Migration has current and future implications for migrants, practitioners and health and social care systems in receiving countries. The focus on quality improvement in health care services will here include migration as a process, practices of relatedness, belonging, social justice and solidarity, and perspectives such as resilience, empowerment, recovery and social-material resources within communities. After completing the course, the students will be competent in evaluating the need for treatment as well as planning and implementing interventions for patients from different cultural backgrounds.

Admission to the Master’s programme in Health Sciences.

After completing the course, the student should have the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence: 

Knowledge

The student

• has a broad understanding of how cultural, social and linguistic backgrounds shape our understanding and perception of health and illness, and in turn the interaction with the health and social systems
• has advanced understanding of the complex and varied nature of migration processes and how this relates to mental and physical conditions and acculturation processes
• has in-depth knowledge of how resilience, empowerment and recovery processes relate to migrant health and wellbeing at the individual, familial and societal levels
• has a high level of understanding of how discrimination and racism influences health and wellbeing and participation in society

Skills

The student

• can make use of dialogue in mental health and involving persons with minority backgrounds and traumatized refugees in open dialogue groups
• can make use of cultural sensitive approaches in health communication work
• can evaluate clinical- and organizational work with patients with minority backgrounds
• can analyze contextual matters  and the process of migrations, impact on health  
• can make use of field work and qualitative methods in this process

Competence

The student

• has increased understanding of different explanatory models, perceptions and experiences of mental health and physical conditions based upon different medical knowledge systems and acculturation processes
• has advanced knowledge of how context and social conditions influence migrants / refugee’s health and wellbeing
• has a high level of ethical reflection that contribute to reducing stigmatization and that enables the candidate to address these challenges within the health- and social systems

Lectures, cases, group work, fieldwork and dialogue groups.

The following must have been completed and approved in order for a student to be permitted to take the exam:

• Written assignment, Individual, Scope: 1000 words (+/- 10 %)

Project exam in form of written homework over seven days.

• Either written individually or in a group of 2 students.

• Scope: If written as an individual exam the text must be 2500 words (+/- 20 %) or 4000 words (+/- 20 %) if written as a group.

The course is taught in English. Students may also choose to write/conduct the exam in a Scandinavian language (Norwegian, Swedish or Danish).

All is permitted as long as the candidate use literature references in accordance with existing guidelines.

A grading scale of A (highest) to F (lowest).

If the exam is written by a group, each member of the group will receive the same grade.

Each examination answer paper will be assessed by two examiners. An external examiner will assess at least 20 % of the answer papers. The assessments provided by the external examiner should benefit all the students

10 credits overlap with MAPSD5100.