Community Health

Objectives

Understand the concepts of health and disease.

Understand and apply the concepts of prevention, including health promotion, disease prevention and early diagnosis.

Framing the community health activities in behavioral and scientific dimensions.

Program

1. Health and Disease: Concepts, historical evolution, associated dimensions, modification of morbidity and mortality patterns

2. Public Health Problem: concept and criteria

3. Prevention: concept, classification and examples

4. Disease preventive behaviors

5. Health systems and the supply and demand of health care as framework elements of the population behavior

6. Community health activities, with emphasis on population screening as an example of important activity in the behavioral, community, technical and scientific point of view.

Teaching Methodologies

In the classes are presented concepts and knowledge included in the content, using a methodology of interactive exhibition and stimulating discussion of the issues presented. The materials used in the exhibition are available in Moodle. A critical reflection on the materials and concepts, presented during the classroom teaching activities, is made. This allows the development of the themes using a self-learning approach.

Bibliography

Manuel Villaverde Cabral, Pedro Alcântara da Silva, Hugo Mendes. Saúde e Doença em Portugal, Imprensa de Ciências Social, Lisboa, 2002

Lisa F.Berkman, Ichiro Kawachi. Social Epidemiology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000

Jennie Naidoo and Jane Wills. Promoting Health: A Practical Guide, Baillière Tindall, 2003