Global Health & Social Medicine

BSc in Global Health & Social Medicine is a unique interdisciplinary programme designed for those who wish to understand the social determinants of health and illness in a global context, and to know and evaluate the range of medical and healthcare approaches that seek to tackle disease and alleviate inequalities in health. This programe will run from September 2014.

KEY BENEFITS1. An unrivalled opportunity to study social and environmental determinants of health and medicine in an interdisciplinary context with close collaboration between the social sciences, life sciences and biomedicine.

2. An international focus to prepare students for work in an increasingly interdependent world.

3. An opportunity to combine a high level social science education with an introduction to key areas of biomedical knowledge and their implications for clinical practice.

4. Taught in an institution with a concentration of biomedical and health resources and research that is unrivalled anywhere in Europe.

5. Teaching by an international team of experts, committed to interdisciplinary education in these key areas of health, disease and medicine with expertise at both the national and global scale.

PROGRAMME DESCRIPTIONSecuring the health and well being of the world’s citizens requires the development and implementation of effective policies and practices for health care and disease prevention that are generated far beyond the clinical setting. All modern societies have recognized that they have obligations to set up and support health care systems to tackle disease, maintain public health and prevent pandemics as an essential matter of state.

However, this requires not just of ‘medical’ infrastructure: facilities for training and certifying doctors, networks of general practitioners, hospitals, specialized clinics, medical insurance systems and so forth, but also adequate ‘social’ infrastructure: the provision of pure water, food and sewage systems, adequate housing, education in child rearing, hygiene and health promotion. In addition, the provision of medicine and health care has huge economic and ethical implications raising questions of how multi-million pound investments in medical research and pharmaceutical drug development should be funded, and how the costs to an economy of ill health and the benefits of health research could be more evenly redistributed.

These issues also have serious geopolitical implications as they create major regional variations in rates of illness and life expectancy. These contribute to the perpetuation of conditions such as HIV/AIDS and malaria that result in thousands of premature deaths each year and give rise to global health emergencies such as pandemics that disregard national borders. Health, that is to say, is more than simply a medical matter. Addressing these threats to health and well being demands the involvement of many people who are not clinicians but who have advanced knowledge of the political, social, economic and ethical implications of health care delivery, new biomedical advances and global health inequalities. The aim of this interdisciplinary degree programme is to train such graduates by providing them with the intellectual skills, empirical knowledge and research techniques required to think critically about these issues.

By combining a rigorous social science education with an introduction to key issues in health care within the unrivalled medical schools of King’s College, students will acquire the skills to gather, organize and deploy evidence; synthesize relevant information; and construct reasoned arguments in preparation for their employment in government departments, NGOs, in industry and in research in the global healthcare sector.

ABOUT THE Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine
CAREERS This degree programme equips students for a wide range of career options in the health services, in public health, in government and NGOs in the UK and elsewhere, and in the commercial medical and health sectors, as well as for future careers in academic research and teaching.

With the job market becoming ever more competitive, it has been reported that King’s offers its graduates the best job prospects of any London or Russell Group university, with an employment rate of 95.2 percent, an increase of 2.6 percent on last year.
The data, compiled by The Careers Group, University of London, is based on institutional Employment Performance Indicators (EPI) for full-time, first degree, UK domiciled graduates in work or further study.
King’s has the highest EPI in the Russell Group and the largest increase in benchmark performance from 2009-10 figures.
The results also place King’s third overall in the UK as reported in The Telegraph’s ‘Top 10 universities for getting a job'.
Robert Hall, Director of Library Services & Employability, said: ‘This is testament to the commitment the College is making in ensuring that our students develop the right skills to succeed in the work place.’
TEACHING STYLE Based within the School of Social Science & Public Policy, the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine is interdisciplinary in its ethos, bringing together specialists from across the social sciences whose research focuses on the social, political, cultural and economic determinants of health, disease and medical care. Our aim is to make this research practically and socially relevant, and hence we place great emphasis on social and ethical implications of our knowledge and understanding for individual, local, national and global inequalities in health outcomes. This is a highly stimulating intellectual environment attracting leading scholars wanting to place their knowledge and skills into a global context. A research-led curriculum encourages critical analysis and debate on contemporary medical, ethical, political and policy issues. A variety of teaching methods are used on the programme which will enable students to develop a high level of academic literacy. Most modules use lectures accompanied by small tutorial groups.
STRUCTURE OF PROGRAMMES & ASSESSMENT The programme consists of a mixture of compulsory and optional courses, and a research based dissertation that is undertaken in Year Three. Compulsory course are all taught from within the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine, which also offers optional courses in Years Two and Three. Optional courses can also be taken from other Departments in the School of Social Science and Public Policy, and in the School of Arts and Humanities. In each year, students also follow an option taken from those offered within the School of Biomedical Sciences or other King’s health schools. The modules are assessed through a range of techniques including examinations, coursework and tutorial participation. There are also opportunities to follow courses in foreign languages, to take internships in related organizations, and to study for a period aboard.
LOCATION Teaching is mainly based on the Strand Campus on the banks of the River Thames, with all the facilities offered by the College easily available and the cultural attractions of the South Bank and Covent Garden on its doorstep. Teaching from the School of Biomedical Sciences is located at the Guys Campus, a short journey away. The library and computing facilities are readily accessible together with the opportunity to use the University of London library at Senate House.

ABOUT THE Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine
CAREERS This degree programme equips students for a wide range of career options in the health services, in public health, in government and NGOs in the UK and elsewhere, and in the commercial medical and health sectors, as well as for future careers in academic research and teaching.

With the job market becoming ever more competitive, it has been reported that King’s offers its graduates the best job prospects of any London or Russell Group university, with an employment rate of 95.2 percent, an increase of 2.6 percent on last year.
The data, compiled by The Careers Group, University of London, is based on institutional Employment Performance Indicators (EPI) for full-time, first degree, UK domiciled graduates in work or further study.
King’s has the highest EPI in the Russell Group and the largest increase in benchmark performance from 2009-10 figures.
The results also place King’s third overall in the UK as reported in The Telegraph’s ‘Top 10 universities for getting a job'.
Robert Hall, Director of Library Services & Employability, said: ‘This is testament to the commitment the College is making in ensuring that our students develop the right skills to succeed in the work place.’
TEACHING STYLE Based within the School of Social Science & Public Policy, the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine is interdisciplinary in its ethos, bringing together specialists from across the social sciences whose research focuses on the social, political, cultural and economic determinants of health, disease and medical care. Our aim is to make this research practically and socially relevant, and hence we place great emphasis on social and ethical implications of our knowledge and understanding for individual, local, national and global inequalities in health outcomes. This is a highly stimulating intellectual environment attracting leading scholars wanting to place their knowledge and skills into a global context. A research-led curriculum encourages critical analysis and debate on contemporary medical, ethical, political and policy issues. A variety of teaching methods are used on the programme which will enable students to develop a high level of academic literacy. Most modules use lectures accompanied by small tutorial groups.
STRUCTURE OF PROGRAMMES & ASSESSMENT The programme consists of a mixture of compulsory and optional courses, and a research based dissertation that is undertaken in Year Three. Compulsory course are all taught from within the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine, which also offers optional courses in Years Two and Three. Optional courses can also be taken from other Departments in the School of Social Science and Public Policy, and in the School of Arts and Humanities. In each year, students also follow an option taken from those offered within the School of Biomedical Sciences or other King’s health schools. The modules are assessed through a range of techniques including examinations, coursework and tutorial participation. There are also opportunities to follow courses in foreign languages, to take internships in related organizations, and to study for a period aboard.
LOCATION Teaching is mainly based on the Strand Campus on the banks of the River Thames, with all the facilities offered by the College easily available and the cultural attractions of the South Bank and Covent Garden on its doorstep. Teaching from the School of Biomedical Sciences is located at the Guys Campus, a short journey away. The library and computing facilities are readily accessible together with the opportunity to use the University of London library at Senate House.