Summer Schools
A 3-week residential summer school on Global Health
The participants will be undergraduates early in their career. Instruction, in the form of tutorial sessions for the group and assessment of a short project prepared by each student, will be provided by members of Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Medicine.
The participants will be selected by the University. We offer residence in one of Oxford’s colleges inclusive of half-board for 21 days, tuition for the 3-week course and trips to London (British Museum, Wellcome Collection, Hunterian Museum) and Berkeley, Gloucestershire (Jenner Museum and Berkeley Castle). During the course of students stay we would of course, if desired, facilitate visits to colleges additional to that they stay in.
The number of students we are able to accommodate is somewhere between 20 and 25 plus accompanying faculties.
We have been successfully delivering this course to University of Southern California students since 2011.
Global Health
The program will encompass 5 themes:
Challenges in global health
Health policy and public health
Tropical medicine
Vaccinology
International development and health
The aims and objectives of each theme are as follows:
Challenges in global health: The aim is to introduce students to the major diseases and risks to health in the developing world. The objectives are:
Overview the major public health challenges in developing countries
Understand the risk factors for premature death in these countries
Appreciate the major prevention strategies and challenges for control of these diseases
Health policy and public health: The aim is to examine policy issues and determinants of public health and health policy in international health. The objectives are:
Understand major principles of public health
Understand principles of health promotion and behaviour change in relation to health
Understand the role of values, ethics, culture with regards to health
Tropical medicine: The aim is to give students an introduction to tropical infectious diseases. The objectives are:
Understand the clinical aspects of the most common tropical diseases, with an emphasis on infectious diseases
Appreciate the strategies used to deliver diagnose and treat these diseases in resource-limited settings
Vaccinology: The aim is to give students an overview of the availability and use of vaccination in disease control in developed and developing countries. The objectives are:
Understand the current impact of vaccination programmes on global health and threats to current control measures
Understand the scientific basis of new vaccine development and both opportunities for and impediments to progress
Appreciate the process and financial requirements for vaccine development and deployment
International development and health: The aim is to situate health in its wider social, economic and political context and provide a basic understanding of the intimate, bi-directional relationship between health and development processes. The objectives are:
To understand the main theories relating health and development, and identify their strengths and weaknesses
To understand a range of paradigms and narratives in development studies
To appreciate the intended and unintended consequences of development interventions for health
To understand the role policy processes play in realising development objectives
Each theme will consist of 3 sessions, as outlined below. Every student will participate in all 15 sessions, plus a special ‘Guest session’. Students will select one of the five themes on which to base their project.