EPN-V2

SYKP2200B Public Health Course description

Course name in Norwegian
Folkehelsearbeid
Study programme
Bachelor's Programme in Nursing
Weight
20.0 ECTS
Year of study
2024/2025
Curriculum
SPRING 2025
Schedule
Course history

Introduction

The course focuses on evidence-based public health work, with particular emphasis on health promotion and preventive efforts in community health services. Central themes include understanding how health challenges are distributed in the population. Therefore, you will learn how factors such as education, employment, living conditions, and the environment influence disease, health, and quality of life in the population at individual, group, and societal levels. The environment in which children and young people grow up is also part of the course.

In community health services, nurses have a significant responsibility to offer care and guidance to various population groups, including healthy individuals, vulnerable populations, and marginalised groups. One topic of discussion is how the development of service offerings and the use of technology in healthcare impact social, ethical, and political issues.

In this course, you will gain insight into scientific methods and undertake a group project related to practical internship (5 weeks), during which you will plan and execute a project under supervision. This project work provides the group with the opportunity to explore a chosen area of concern and employ suitable methods for data collection and analysis. The results will be presented orally as well as in written form as a project assignment.

In this course, you study together with students who are on exchange to OsloMet and much of the teaching is arranged with English-speaking groups.

Required preliminary courses

To start this course, you must have passed:

  • Passed the first year of study.

Learning outcomes

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

Knowledge

The student

  • can describe the purpose, organisation, and coordination of health and social services and be aware of relevant laws and regulations
  • can describe the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their significance for public health
  • can explain how patients' health literacy affects lifestyle changes and shared decision-making
  • can explain the relationship between work, social participation, and health
  • can discuss factors influencing the environment in which children and young people grow up, and explain how activity and well-being affect health, well-being, and disease prevention for all population groups
  • can describe key issues related to women's health
  • can describe key issues related to sexual health and sexually transmitted diseases
  • can explain how migration, displacement, and legal status can impact an individual's health
  • can reflect on health promotion and prevention work at individual, group, and societal levels, emphasising how digital solutions can support preventive strategies and health-promoting measures
  • can describe fundamental concepts, mechanisms, and tools behind digitalisation and explain how digitalisation shapes public and private life
  • can describe the impact of digitalisation, technology availability, and the importance of digital competence on people's lives, public health, and social health disparities
  • can describe social inequality in health and be aware of national and global consequences of inequality
  • understand ethical challenges (related to privacy) in the use of technology in healthcare
  • can explain how research can contribute to knowledge development to understand public health and societal needs, such as technological advancement
  • have knowledge of how different issues guide relevant research methods

Skills

The student

  • can reflect on ethical challenges related to public health efforts aimed at behavior change
  • can identify various health promotion and preventive strategies and measures and evaluate them considering the Sustainable Development Goals
  • can reflect on the Sami people's status as indigenous people related to the design of health and social services
  • can provide examples of how digital solutions can affect social determinants related to health and lifestyle
  • can apply professional knowledge and scientific methods to plan and execute a project in health promotion and preventive work
  • can reflect on quality concepts in qualitative versus quantitative methods such as validity, reliability, validity, and reliability
  • can reflect on ethical dilemmas related to the collection and use of health data in various contexts

General competence

The student

  • can discuss factors influencing disease, health, and quality of life in groups or the population as a whole
  • can discuss how technology and digital strategies can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
  • can reflect on health risks in individuals dealing with demanding caregiving tasks, family substance abuse problems, individuals who have experienced neglect and/or violence in close relationships
  • can discuss how digital technologies can build and influence interprofessional collaboration in healthcare
  • can reflect on how different methodological choices can yield different types of knowledge

Teaching and learning methods

Lectures, teaching programs from the University Library, project-based practical training (five weeks) group work, self-study, and participation with presentations at seminars.

Course requirements

Through the work in this course, the students will gain insight into areas of mathematics that are important to the modelling of technical and natural science systems and processes. The topics covered are included in engineering programmes across the world and are necessary in order to enable engineers to communicate professionally in an efficient and precise manner and participate in discussions in professional contexts later in the programme.

Assessment

None.

Permitted exam materials and equipment

All aids are permitted, as long as the rules for source referencing are complied with.

Grading scale

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

Knowledge:

The student is capable of

  • explaining the use and solution of differential equations in the modelling of practical systems and performing simple analyses of such models
  • explaining the concept of functions, the derivative, and the definite and indefinite integral
  • explaining the relationship between linear equation systems and practical problems
  • solving equations numerically using the bi-section method and Newton method.

Skills:

The student is capable of

  • solving separable and linear differential equations with the help of anti-derivation
  • solving homogeneous and nonhomogeneous second-order differential equations with constant coefficients
  • calculating with complex figures and solving equations with complex solutions
  • using basic arithmetic operations for matrices, such as multiplication, addition and inversion
  • solving linear equation systems in reduced row echelon form and inversion
  • calculating exact values for the derivative and the anti-derivative for certain elementary functions
  • using the definite integral to calculate sizes as area and volume
  • using derivation for, for example, optimisation and related rates

General competence:

The student is capable of

  • transferring a practical problem from their own field into a mathematical form
  • writing precise explanations and reasons for using procedures, and demonstrating the correct use of mathematical notation
  • using mathematical methods and tools of relevance to the field
  • using mathematics to communicate about engineering issues
  • explaining how changes and changes per unit time can be measured, calculated, summed up and incorporated into equations

Examiners

The teaching is organised as lectures, exercises and laboratory course,;partly individually, partly in groups and receive instruction;from the teacher.

Overlapping courses

  • 5 ECTS overlap with xx1050 Public Health and Health Management, 5 ECTS.
  • 5 ECTS overlap with SYKK/SYKPPRA40 Promotion of Health and Prevention of Illness, 5

ECTS.

  • 10 ECTS overlap with SYKK/PPRA45 Public Health, 10 ECTS.
  • 20 ECTS overlap with med SYK2900 Public Health in a Global Perspective, 20 ECTS.
  • SYKK2200x and SYKP2200x are fully overlapping.