Research Methods in Global Health

The course consists of complementary theoretical and research components.

The theoretical component of the course consists of lectures and master classes. During the lectures, students becomes acquainted with current topics in global health, placed in a historical perspective. During the master classes,several fields of global health (including mental health, cross-cultural competencies and non-communicable diseases) are used to illustrate the complexity of disease burden in a global context and to build the case for multi/inter- and transdisciplinary analysis of complex problems. Each master class consists of two sessions. The first session is organized as a lecture, in which the topic is approached from inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives. The second session is organized as a supervised workgroup, in which students discuss the most recent developments, as published in the literature, and thus become familiar with the different paradigms and models used in health.

The research component of the course consists of lectures, workshops and an assignment. During the lectures and workshops, students acquire basic knowledge and skills on research design, different research paradigms, quantitative and qualitative research methods and the combination thereof (i.e., mixed-methods). During the assignment, students design a needs assessment for exploring the problems associated with one of the two topics: the prevention of HIV mother-to-child transmission in a specific context OR the prevention of peri-natal depression in mothers. The needs assessment is based on literature review and is conducted in small groups. Each group receives feedback on different versions of their draft reports during the supervised workgroups, and provide feedback to another group in one peer review round.