In this module you will develop a solid grounding in the methodologies and skills you will use across across all modules of the Course and for your independent project. These skills include critical thinking, qualitative and quantitative research methods with a focus on qualitative methods appropriate to the MA pathway, including interviews, focus groups, participatory and non-participatory observation, rapid ethnographic assessment, surveys, mixed methods and triangulation, as well as teamworking and project management.

The module will equip you with the knowledge, skills and capabilities you will to work independently and as part of an interdisciplinary team, taking a systems approach to Global and Planetary Health Challenges, in line with the Planetary Health Alliance’s Educational Framework.

The module will cover the value of and reasons for choosing a qualitative or quantitative approach, the advantages and challenges of mixed methods; critical appraisal; data analysis; and presentation. You will be given opportunities to practice specific skills such as choosing a representative sample, interview techniques and observations through critical analysis of case studies. You will be encouraged to consider what data you will need for your own project, and how you will go about collecting, analysing and presenting it.

You will start to identify, early within term 1, a chosen topic area for your independent research project, which you will undertake in Module HE5001, (Term 3) and you will work through and across all other modules of your course to draw in skills and knowledge related to your chosen area.

You will develop and appraise data collection protocols and assess the available data collection tools, giving critical appraisal of their appropriateness to your own and peers’ planned projects.

You will be expected to consider multi-disciplinary approaches to research working in small teams (3-4 students) of mixed MA/MSc intended exit routes, to approach the same topic from different angles. As students on the MA pathway exit route, you will be expected to critically appraise the qualitative research methodologies you will choose to employ and be able to defend these within a mixed methods approach and against approaches chosen by other students in your cohort. Each student will work independently and receive an individual mark for your own work and informal feedback on your teamworking and interdisciplinarity.

This module will critically appraise how health systems are organised at local, national and international level, including how they are financed and regulated, both internally and as part of wider welfare, social and socioecological systems, and what treaties and regulations – at national and international level – are in place to protect them. This will be framed within the Planetary Health Alliance’s Educational Framework item 5: Systems Thinking and Complexity, and thus will consider human and environmental health as part of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). Particular attention will be given to critical appraisal of the 21^st century as the Age of Re-emerging Infections, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and antimicrobial resistance; and individual vs community rights with regard to disease outbreaks.

Students will appraise how and by whom health research and provision is funded and delivered. They will critically assess how health and health outcomes are measured and develop skills needed to interrogate and analyse key data bases, e.g. Global Burden of Disease study. Students will critically assess how the structure, governance and regulatory frameworks of such systems may exclude or marginalise some populations and individuals, as well as how the system can discourage or incentivise skilled healthcare workers to practice in resource-poor environments. How investment in infrastructure underpins health more broadly will also be covered. The role of State, private, NGO, philanthropic and volunteer healthcare providers will be critiqued.

Students are encouraged to reflect on these themes throughout the course and during a seminar with an international speaker who has operated in difficult and challenging environments outside of the UK. Students will be assessed through the delivery of case for support for an intervention that is intended to improve the current baseline, using evidence-informed critical appraisal of the current barriers to good health and how the intervention will improve the current situation.

This module provides you with the foundational knowledge of planetary and global health that underpins the Course and which you will need to move through the other modules and towards your independent project. You will critically appraise key literature, databases, case study repositories and journals to which you will need to refer for self-guided learning. You will explore the history of planetary health as an academic field and as an activism movement; appraise the conceptual framing that underpins a planetary health approach; and learn how to apply key methodologies and critical thinking to 21^st century global challenges.

The module will critically define the Anthropocene as an era of human-induced global environmental change that has grave impacts on human health. You will critically analyse the differences between the field of public health, global health, planetary health, OneHealth and Ecoheath; critically analyse academic theories including the Great Acceleration (the accelerating pace of environmental degradation that has occurred since the mid-20^th century), Planetary Boundaries (the limits to which the Earth can support changes to geo-biophysical states); the ‘Sixth Great Extinction’ and the loss of biodiversity; and explore novel ways of valuing and evaluating nature and ecosystem services’ impacts on human, animal and environmental health.

The module will discuss potential pathways to careers that are mindful of planetary health and will also introduce you to international networks of planetary health academics and practitioners, such as the Planetary Health Alliance and the InVIVO Planetary Health Network, and will explain how you can engage with these networks. This will be enhanced by a guest lecture from a senior external academic.