Public Health - children and young people

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Good health and quality of life in adolescence provide a basis for a good life course for the individual and for sustainable social development. The course focuses on health-promoting and preventive factors in the upbringing environment and on welfare systems that can counteract social health inequalities. The course provides an overview of existing knowledge about the greatest public health challenges of adolescence, and the prevailing international and national political guidelines in the field. The course will particularly focus on the everyday arenas of young people (family, local environment, kindergarten and school) where health is created and threatened, and where there is an opportunity to implement universal and targeted measures against the entire and/or vulnerable groups of the child and youth population (individual, group and population). This also includes an in-depth introduction to the rights of children and young people related to the aforementioned everyday arenas. The course also covers how children and young people can participate in both public health work, service development and research.

After completing the course, the student should:

Knowledge:

• have in-depth insight into the child and adolescent population, its health, quality of life and living conditions, with a focus on Norwegian conditions.
• have in-depth insight into children's and young people's rights
• have knowledge of the importance of children's and young people's everyday life arenas in public health work
• have knowledge of the importance of collaborative competence, multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral public health work for children and young people
• have insight into knowledge-based public health work aimed at the health of children and young people
• have insight into public health and public health work for children and young people in a contemporary, life-course and generational perspective

Skills:

• be able to obtain, critically assess and apply knowledge about the state of public health and examples of measures that may be relevant to children and young people and reflect ethically on them
• be able to apply relevant methods for the participation and involvement of children and young people in planning public health work and service development
• be able to communicate professional issues regarding public health among children and young people to different target groups (children/young people, the general public, decision-makers and professionals)
• ability to take a critical analytical look at the current political guidelines within public health work for children and young people

General competence:

• Be able to see the connection between the public health status among children and young people and available instruments for health promotion and preventive measures and contribute to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of measures aimed at the family, local environment, kindergarten and school
• Be able to see the connection between the structural level and the individual level when it comes to identifying children and young people's health and welfare problems as well as resources

Pedagogical organization: Lecture, seminar, group assignment, self-study, peer response. The teaching takes place in Trondheim.