Living Longer: A Global Diagnosis

Subject UNIB30005 (2011)

Note: This is an archived Handbook entry from 2011.

Credit Points: 12.50
Level: 3 (Undergraduate)
Dates & Locations:

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2011:

Semester 2, Parkville - Taught on campus.
Pre-teaching Period Start not applicable
Teaching Period not applicable
Assessment Period End not applicable
Last date to Self-Enrol not applicable
Census Date not applicable
Last date to Withdraw without fail not applicable


Timetable can be viewed here. For information about these dates, click here.
Time Commitment: Contact Hours: 2 hrs lecture, 1 hr tutorial ie 3 hrs per week X 12 weeks
Total Time Commitment: 6 hours per week for 12 weeks
Prerequisites: None
Corequisites: None
Recommended Background Knowledge: None
Non Allowed Subjects: None
Core Participation Requirements: For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements of this entry.
The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website.

Coordinator

Prof Janet Mccalman

Contact

Centre for Health and Society
Melbourne School of Population Health
Tel: +61 3 8344 9107
Email: janetsm@unimelb.edu.au

OR

Academic Programs Office
Melbourne School of Population Health
Tel: +61 3 8344 9339
Fax: +61 3 8344 0824
Email: sph-gradinfo@unimelb.edu.au

Subject Overview: Since 1800, human life expectancy at birth has doubled globally and tripled in the most favoured nations. This has been a biological and social achievement of great complexity, and no single factor—public health, income, material resources, medical knowledge, technology, individual behaviour, social organization—can explain this progress in survival. Neither can any one theory or discipline provide a satisfactory account. This will be an interdisciplinary investigation drawing on biology, medicine, epidemiology, demography, history, politics, economics and the medical social sciences. The subject will follow the health transition from the late eighteenth century to the present day, exploring in historical sequence the social interventions, economic changes and advances in scientific knowledge that have enabled increasing proportions of human beings to live longer. It will review critically the roles of public health; medicine; wealth, income and economic development; famine, malnutrition and diet; households and individuals; literacy and education. It will engage students with workshops in interdisciplinary case studies across time and place. Students who take this subject will obtain a rich, interdisciplinary understanding of the complexity of human mortality in social context, and of the reciprocity between biology and culture.
This University Breadth Subject is an exercise in the explanation of complexity i.e. the rise in human life expectancy that is a biological, biomedical, cultural, economic, ecological, political and moral phenomenon, with those elements varying in their explanatory significance over time and place.
It therefore needs to be explored by practitioners of those disciplinary perspectives being seen to work together—as in fact they do in the real world of population health, health delivery and health policy.
Objectives:
  • To comprehend the complexity of population health and human mortality and morbidity in their socio-economic and ecological contexts;
  • To appreciate the complexity of medical interventions, their delivery, effects and limitations;
  • To demonstrate the multi-disciplinarity of human health and medical care and the interdisciplinarity of the practice of both biomedical care and public health administration and delivery;
  • To acquire a literacy in the application of quantitative and qualitative evidence in socio-medico-economic problems
Assessment:
  • One 500 word tutorial paper (10%)
  • A short weekly online 'blog diary' (30%)
  • a 2000 word research project due in the examination period (50%)
  • Tutorial participation (10%)
Prescribed Texts: James C Riley (2001) Rising Life Expectancy: a global history (Cambridge University Press)
Breadth Options:

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

Fees Information: Subject EFTSL, Level, Discipline & Census Date
Generic Skills:
  • Critical thinking and enhanced literacy across a range of disciplines and the development of written and verbal communication both for scholarly purposes and knowledge transfer
  • Encourage the development of ability to synthesise a wide range of materials
  • Collaborative learning and constructive team membership through tutorial classes and the assessment procedures
  • Effective use of the library and research support services and of information technology for the gathering and assessment of a wide variety of inter-disciplinary materials

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