Health Sciences
Welcome to the Department of Health Sciences!
The degree programmes and disciplines offered by the Department of Health Sciences focus on the conditions, needs and challenges that individuals and the health system face in the context of dynamic social change. In our department, we value interdisciplinary collaboration, facilitated by the diverse professional and methodological perspectives of our members. Together, we create an environment characterised by practice-oriented education across nine different degree programmes and by innovative research conducted in close collaboration with practitioners and society, with social engagement as a central focus.
Focus
The department has two main areas of focus: community health and economics and sustainability in healthcare.
Community health focuses on healthcare, prevention, and health promotion for all people, with particular emphasis on different communities. These are defined on the basis of group characteristics, such as a common set of characteristics and diversity characteristics, with which they can either identify themselves or which are attributed to them from the outside. These can be characteristics such as age, physical and mental abilities, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation, religion and belief, nationality, ethnicity or social origin, as well as a common work or shared social spaces. In order to reduce social inequalities, discrimination and their effects on health, Community Health takes a multi-perspective view of existing services, needs and requirements. Community Health addresses the diverse issues and complex challenges associated with this using interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and participatory approaches to enable equal, health-related and social participation for all.
The three pillars of health, sustainability and economics form the basis of the work in this focus area. Classic economic issues in the health industry are linked with ecological and social issues with the aim of making the health system sustainable and efficient and developing innovative solutions for environmentally friendly and socially just health care. A course of study in this field prepares students for making future-oriented decisions in the health care system and taking responsibility for sustainable development.
