University College London

The recent policy reforms launched in the UK National Health System coupled with the challenges faced by health systems globally with the Covid-19 pandemic, emphasize the need for a better understanding of how healthcare systems function, how they are financed, and how strategic policies are developed to ensure the provision of care to the highest quality standards. In this course, students understand how the state and other private and public health-related institutions and processes influence health systems' performance. Moreover, the module explores the demographic and socio-economic challenges faced by healthcare systems, particularly in terms of power and resources contested in the health sector. It is intended to address the gap in health economics that often ignores the developments of the political economy in health systems. This course is relevant for students from several backgrounds, as the focus are both on politics and economics and their interface in terms of health and healthcare.

In this course, students consider the ways of identifying novel compounds for development and the processes which take place before such compounds are released onto the market following its introduction into clinical practice. The course includes an opportunity for group project work on the development of a specific drug and series of case studies looking at the criteria which contributes to successful outcome in a drug development program. 

Students are introduced to the fundamental principles of clinical research studies, with emphasis on clinical trials rather than observational studies. Students are guided through the design, conduct, and analysis and reporting of clinical trials and the common sub-studies often added to them (e.g. health economics). Students are also introduced to systematic reviews and meta-analyses and the important role they play in answering important clinical research questions. A session of the course is dedicated to the role patients and consumers can play in clinical trial design, conduct, and reporting.

This course explores the relationship between collective and individual behavior, society, and technology. It is especially concerned with how technologies evolve in relation to organizational, collective, and individual behavior, and vice versa. The course evaluates how technologies deliver (and fail to deliver) profitable, effective, and valuable products services processes and activities. It also explores in detail the relationship between society and technology, especially in terms of how and why technologies succeed and fail; the value that technologies deliver (and do not deliver); and the wider position of technology in society. Students examine also the relationship between individuals and technology, and how behavior influences how technologies are developed, and how technologies influence and shape behavior.

Food is fundamental to survival and a powerful lens with which to view social realities. Social groups are reproduced by activities such as eating together whilst food practices are constrained by inequitable access to material resources and subject to intense moral scrutiny. This course provides a broad introduction to the study of food and eating in the social sciences, particularly sociology and anthropology, and why they are now high on many countries’ policy agendas. Taking an historical and international approach, students explore innovative social scientific contributions to the study of global challenges including dietary health, food poverty, and sustainability.