Department of Health Social Science

Department of Health Social Science

Established in 2006, the Department of Health Social Science (DHSS) is committed to improving and understanding health and well-being from a social perspective. DHSS offers comprehensive programs in health promotion and prevention, population health, and policy.  The Department, based at Caulfield campus, is part of the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and home to the Bachelor of Health Science, Bachelor of Health Science/Bachelor of Social Work, the Honours year of the Bachelor of Health Science, postgraduate coursework programs and PhD students.

Our mission is to conduct research and education that builds capacity to promote health and fosters effective strategies to improve population and individual health. We adopt multi-disciplinary approaches to research and teaching.   We are committed to work that strengthens community based health services, and the development and adoption of policy that actively promotes health and wellbeing. We are committed to addressing health and social inequities.  We value partnerships between communities and higher educational institutions and participate in various University-community partnerships through joint appointments and research partnerships and seek to give our students practical opportunities to apply their knowledge to health problems in Victoria and beyond.  We have a vision that all our graduates will have a strong sense of civic engagement and a commitment to public health, healthy public policy and the health and wellbeing of all people and their communities - whether in Australia or in countries overseas.

Key terms:

Public health involves the organised efforts of societies to keep people healthy and prevent injury, illness and premature death. It is a combination of programs, services and policies that protect and promote the health of all people.

Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase the control over, and increase their health (WHO 1986).  Health promotion works best if is ecological in perspective, multisectoral in scope, and participatory in strategy. Effective health promotion is driven by principles and actions that are designed to allow people to take control over the determinants of their health – to facilitate learning, to overcome powerlessness and tackle the social and structural barriers to good health. Unhealthy behaviours reflect deep structural inequities which is why health promotion must be essentially, a social and political process (Keleher et al 2007).

Healthy public policy is characterised by an explicit concern for health and equity in all areas of policy and by an accountability for health impact. The main aim of health public policy is to create a supportive environment to enable people to lead healthy lives. It makes social and physical environments health-enhancing. In the pursuit of healthy public policy, government sectors concerned with agriculture, trade, education, industry, and communications need to take into account health as an essential factor when formulating policy. These sectors should be accountable for the health consequences of their policy decisions and pay as much attention to health as to economic considerations (WHO 1988).

References

Keleher H. MacDougall C. Murphy B.Approaching health promotion. In Keleher H. MacDougall C. Murphy B. (2007). Understanding health promotion. OUP, Melbourne
Last, J.(2001) A Dictionary of epidemiology. 4th ed. Oxford University Press, New York.
World Health Organization (1986) Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion,WHO, Geneva.
World Health Organization (1988) Adelaide Recommendations on Healthy Public Policy, WHO, Geneva