Health Sciences

This course develops students' understanding of new and emerging issues in population health; it will prioritize the presentation of academic work in progress rather than established knowledge. Students are taught about emerging themes in population health as well as how knowledge develops and is disseminated within the academic community. Students develop a deeper understanding of contemporary population health research and to further develop your capacity to critically appraise key issues in population health. 

Global Health is the research and practice of improving health and wellbeing worldwide. Health has many determinants, and these exceed the ‘biomedical’ domain. This course uses the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals, a global agenda for 2015 to 2030 that was agreed on by the United Nations General Assembly.  Students explore major global health challenges of our time - such as Covid-19 and environmental health - and address current and desired interventions to tackle these challenges in an equitable way. As an interdisciplinary approach is required to tackle the global challenges, interprofessional collaboration and skills are practiced throughout the course.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on health-related behavioral determinants and offers an overview of some recent policies aimed at improving population lifestyles. The course highlights the following topics: 1) the demand for health and health capital; 2) the behavioral determinants leading to unhealthy outcomes such as obesity and addiction; 3) the trade-offs between health and welfare objectives; and 4) policies aimed at modifying health-related behavior and lifestyles. The course combines theoretical analysis and class discussion of case-studies. The course combines theoretical analysis and discussion of case-studies.

Tuberculosis remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Taiwan as well as in many middle and low income countries. The course focuses on the epidemiology and current control strategies of tuberculosis from a global perspective. It discusses the natural history of tuberculosis, key elements in tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment, transmission dynamics, evolving concepts in tuberculosis control at World Health Organization and International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, drug-resistance tuberculosis, and HIV-TB co-epidemic. The course consists of a series of lectures and in-class discussions, field trips (Taiwan CDC mycobacteria laboratory and Taiwan Anti-Tuberculosis Association), paper presentation, and final group-project report.

This course builds upon compulsory level 4 courses with a review of the muscle cell and an understanding of the biochemical processes involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and aminoacids to provide the energy for muscle contraction. It also provides an understanding of how metabolism changes and is regulated in different types of exercise, and the role of nutrition in modulating these changes. 

The course covers the basic concepts and practice of personal injury and forensic identification, including a focus on legal knowledge. It covers the concepts, procedures, and principles of forensic appraisal; the concept of forensic appraisal of personal injury and its relationship with other related disciplines such as forensic clinical science; the manifestations and characteristics of mechanical injuries; common machinery that intentionally harms various systems of the human body, and identification of the degree of injury.

Public health nutrition is concerned with the promotion and maintenance of nutrition-related health and wellbeing of populations through the organized efforts and informed choices of society. Such approaches are required to solve many of the complex nutritional challenges, such as obesity, type-2 diabetes, micronutrient deficiencies, and hunger, which we face today. This class examines the fundamental concepts related to nutrition, frameworks used to examine public health issues, and key historical and current public health nutrition challenges and policies.