Health Aspects of Crises, Emergencies and Disasters (PHCM9662)
This course addresses the epidemiological, clinical, population, systems and service management aspects of crises, emergencies and disasters.
This course addresses the epidemiological, clinical, population, systems and service management aspects of crises, emergencies and disasters.
The course examines the role of healthcare professionals and managers within local and international emergency settings of different scales and durations, including natural disasters and civil emergencies. It utilises a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on a variety of disaster theories from sociology, geography and public health. Expert input will come from faculty, including conjoint faculty who have been actively involved in managing crises situations in the field. Students will be actively involved in scenarios and case studies drawn from major biological, chemical, radiation and natural disasters.
This course is an elective core course in the Master of Health Leadership and Management, Master of Public Health and Master of Global Health programs (and associated dual degrees) comprising 6 units of credit towards the total required for completion of the study program.
This is a PLuS Alliance course offered through UNSW. Students at UNSW, Arizona State University and Kings College London who are in a PLuS Alliance program can enrol into this course.
Face-to-face classes on-campus for Internal students & fully online for Distance External students
A/Prof David Heslop
Course Convenor
+61 (2) 9385 3499
d.heslop@unsw.edu.au
The course is suitable for people currently or wishing to work in the emergency, military and related areas (such as public health emergency staff, fire service, forensics, paramedics, police, civil defence and security, emergency management, international disaster management and humanitarian assistance workers, military personnel) in developed as well as developing countries.
The aim of the course is to build learners’ capacity to operate as public health professionals and managers within the context of local or international crises, emergencies and disasters. It will develop their knowledge of the healthcare aspects of these events, prepare them to assess and respond to such events from the perspective of healthcare services and providers, and assist them to develop the skills required to work within disaster and complex emergency settings.
The outcomes for this course are to enable you to:
In order for public health officials and managers to be able to respond effectively to the healthcare aspects of crises, emergencies and disasters, they require an understanding of both the theory and evidence base, and the practical application of this knowledge and related skills. As a result of this focus, we have designed the course to have a very practical orientation. Students are encouraged to bring as many of their personal experiences and viewpoints to the course and will be provided opportunities to collaborate and communicate utilising various techniques.
We will be using a variety of learning strategies, including lectures, small and large group work, discussions, debates, expert input, case studies, simulation exercises and collective analyses of written materials. The lectures and course material are organised around understanding the fundamentals of health care aspects of disaster management that you need to know about, however at all stages we will go beyond the knowledge base and discuss how to implement strategies in the field.
Assessment Task 1 – Online Forum Participation
Weighting: 10%
Assessment Task 2 – Disaster Management Quiz
Weighting: 40%
Length: 40 mutiple choice questions
Assessment Task 3 – Critical analysis of a public health response to a disaster
Weighting: 50%
Length: 2500 words
Learning resources for the online version of this course consist of the following: