UM SPH Academic Courses

HMP625 Health and Health Systems in the Developing World

Winter term(s)

3 Credit Hour(s)

Instructor(s): Kruk, Margaret

Not offered 2009-2010

Prerequisites: none

Description: This course examines the state of public health systems in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia in the context of global initiatives to dramatically improve health outcomes. The course will cover recent trends in health outcomes, the structure, history and performance of developing country health systems, the international players in health (including the UN and other multilateral and bilateral organizations), key constraints to improving health care delivery, and potential ways forward. This course focuses on international and national health policy as it pertains to developing countries but also deals with questions of health management and implementation of complex systems. There are wide, and in some instances growing, global disparities in health status. In some countries in southern sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the AIDS epidemic has cut 20 years from average life expectancy over the past decade while the developed world has enjoyed a boom of new health discoveries and advances. AIDS and a resurgence in malaria and TB have added to the tremendous strain on fragile health systems, which have already been ravaged by years of underfunding. Government-run health systems in developing countries, whose main role is to deliver a modest package of essential interventions for largely preventable and/or treatable conditions, are on the verge of collapse.

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