Postgraduate Course: Understanding Infectious Disease (PGSP11491)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases have been a matter of increased global public health focus. While biomedical explanations are important, the experience and management of infectious disease is fundamentally bound in social, political, cultural and economic structures. This course focuses upon the way in which social scientific approaches can be harnessed to understand and evaluate the context which surrounds infectious disease governance. The course introduces students to key social scientific concepts in understanding infectious disease, and (particularly in seminar sessions) encourages students to consider how these can be applied in the formulation of effective policy. |
| Course description |
Academic Description: Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases have been a matter of increased global public health focus. While biomedical explanations are important, the experience and management of infectious disease is fundamentally bound in social, political, cultural and economic structures. This course focuses upon the way in which social scientific approaches can be harnessed to understand and evaluate the context that surrounds infectious disease governance. The course introduces students to key social scientific concepts in understanding infectious disease, and encourages students to consider how these can be applied in the formulation of effective policy.
Outline Content or Syllabus:
1. Infectious Diseases as Socio-Political Realities
2. Risk
3. Stigma, Blame and Othering
4. Biopolitics, Surveillance and Health Governance
5. Applying these concepts to a Contemporary Case Study
Student Learning Experience:
Students will attend a 1-hour interactive lecture each week. Seminars will vary between face-to-face activities (e.g. week 1, 3, 4) and online seminar activities (e.g. week 2, 5). Seminars will focus on practice skills and discussion. Online seminars revolve around activities and discussion on the online learning space. Through these activities, students will be able to engage with a range of social scientific concepts and perspectives related to infectious disease policy.
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2021/22, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: 53 |
| Course Start |
Block 2 (Sem 1) |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
88 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Essay of 2500 words (100%) |
| Feedback |
As this is a short 10-credit/5-week course, there will be a single component of formal assessment, as outlined above, which will be submitted after the completion of teaching.
Informal formative feedback will occur through each workshop session and in guidance & feedback hours.
|
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical awareness of current issues in infectious disease and global health
- Critically assess the relationship between infectious disease and socio-political structures at the local, national, and global levels
- Consider and critically analyse the role of key discourses, actors, structures and institutions that underpin the experience and management of infectious disease
- Understand and critically assess various social scientific conceptual and analytical tools in investigating infectious diseases
- Critically evaluate and synthesise academic and policy literatures around infectious disease governance
|
Reading List
Allen, T. and Parker, M. 2011. The Other Diseases of the Millennium Development Goals: Rhetoric and reality of free drug distribution to cure the poor's parasites, Third World Quarterly 32(1):91-117
Briggs, C.L. and Nichter, M. 2012. Biocommunicability and the biopolitics of pandemic threats, Medical Anthropology 28(3):189-98
Coker, R., Rushton, J., Mourier-Jack, S., Karimuribo, E., Lutumba, P, Kambarage, D., Pfeiffer, D., Stark, K., and Rweyemamu, M. 2011. Towards a conceptual framework to support one-health research for policy on emerging zoo noses, Lancet Infectious Diseases 11(4):326-331
Dingwall, R., Hoffman, L., and Staniland, K. 2013. Pandemics and Emerging Diseases: A Sociological Agenda, Chichester: Wiley Publications
Eichelburger, L. 2007. SARS and New York's Chinatown: The politics of risk and blame during an epidemic of fear, Social Science and Medicine 65(5):1284-95
Fidler, D.P. and Gostin, L.O. 2003. Biosecurity and Public Heath, in: Biosecurity in the Global Age, Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp 121-187
|
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Students will develop a range of cognitive and communicative skills including:
- Ability to critically evaluate academic and policy literatures
- Applying specialised knowledge to the analysis of contemporary case studies
- Effective communication skills
|
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Sudeepa Abeysinghe
Tel: (0131 6)51 5471
Email: Sudeepa.Abeysinghe@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Casey Behringer
Tel: (0131 6)50 2456
Email: Casey.behringer@ed.ac.uk |
|
|
University Homepage