Health Sciences

This course covers theories of infectious disease control policy and management of the processes of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery for public health crises related to infectious diseases. 

Via examination of infectious disease control policies and biological knowledge, the course offers an interpretation of infectious diseases and public health crises through the lens of political economy.  

This course examines how the human body responds to extreme environmental stressors (i.e. high altitude, hyperbaria, extreme heat, extreme cold), and how these conditions alter the capacity of humans to perform physical and mental tasks. Special attention will also be given to the theoretical basis of how these stressors can lead to decrements to human health in the form of injury (e.g. frostibite, heat exhaustion) and illness (e.g. pulmonary/cerebral oedema, actue mountain sickness, 'the bends'). This course will also focus on how this information can be used to develop therapeutic, pharmacological, and/or technological interventions to improve human functioning in extreme environments and reduce the risk of illness and injury. 

This course examines a range of medical genetic disorders that illustrate principles of disease mechanisms, diagnosis and management. These will include: haemophilia, familial cancer, late-onset neurological disorders and mitochondrial disease.

The course explores theories of drug use and abuse, the neurobiological effects of drugs, and drug policy and law in New Zealand and the world. 

This course examines characteristics of health disorders that may lead to need for care and social support with special reference to disabilities. Topics include: consequences of illness; primary disabling diseases with early manifestation; primary cardiocirculatory and respiratory diseases associated with disability; primary metabolic diseases associated with disability; disability due to diseases of the musculoskeletal system; disability due to neurological disorders; disability due to psychiatric pathology.

In this course, students learn to apply the One Health approach to address public health issues with a focus on infectious diseases. Students examine how the concept of One Health recognizes that the health of people is intertwined with the health of animals and their shared environment. Understanding this concept allows the integration of information from these three health domains when creating programs, policies, and legislation to achieve better public health outcomes. Current major public health concerns will be analyzed, and One Health interventions contrasted to a traditional approach for students to better appreciate the differences.

In this course, students examine the concept of health, discuss health promotion and disease prevention, and delve into the world of understanding and changing lifestyle behaviors. Students analyze how psychological factors, environments, policies, culture and even corporations shape human behaviors. These insights allow students to design powerful lifestyle interventions. Students gain foundational knowledge and skills necessary for understanding and improving the lifestyle behaviors of populations.

This course provides an overview of occupational health and safety conditions worldwide. The course addresses how to enhance working conditions and prevent accidents and injuries through the implementation of ILO training programs practiced globally. The course also introduces key Japanese concepts such as kaizen and 5S, allowing students to engage with these training approaches while developing practical skills for planning and implementing workplace improvements applicable to future work environments.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The program focuses on the protection of healthcare in the European Union and most notably covers the following topics:

• the major constitutional and political issues underlying this subject;
• the competences of the EU in the field of healthcare and the increasing role of the One Health approach in the EU;
• healthcare as an economic freedom;
• healthcare as a fundamental right;
• healthcare as a sectoral policy of the European Union: governance, institutional actors and regulatory framework;
• the case law of the Court of Justice on health services and access to cross-border healthcare; the pharmaceutical and medical devices market;
• the digitization of healthcare systems (e.g., e-Health, m-Health, Artificial Intelligence, and European Health Data Space);
• preparedness and response planning in the event of serious cross-border health threats: the Union’s response to COVID-19.

At the end of the course unit, students: possess an in-depth knowledge about the supranational legal mechanisms concerning health, with an emphasis on patient mobility and the cooperation between Member States to face transboundary health crises; can figure out (and solve) problems affecting the transboundary development of health policies at the European level, especially the provision of health services, and are capable to assess the abovementioned mechanisms in the framework of the applicable international legal regime, in particular the World Health Organization.