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Health Studies

Employability profiles to follow shortly.

A graduate in health studies typically will have the ability to:

  • communicate with others in a clear and articulate manner, using word or number, through written work using appropriate academic conventions
  • present ideas and arguments verbally in formal presentations and seminars, and conduct informal discussions in a variety of environments
  • work with others in the preparation and presentation of group work, and take responsibility for an agreed area of a shared activity
  • negotiate informally with peers and formally with members of organisations
  • identify and propose solutions to problems, both in relation to the substantive area of health studies and to other educational and social issues
  • work independently and identify ongoing personal skill development needs
  • recognise equal opportunities issues and identify appropriate action
  • use IT to store, retrieve and produce material for health studies coursework, drawing on skills in word processing, databases and spreadsheets
  • gather and analyse information from a wide variety of sources using appropriate manual and electronic systems
  • reflect on and review progress in their own studies, and seek assistance or guidance as appropriate in order to enhance their own personal development.

The study of health is concerned with all aspects of human experiences in health and illness. Health studies as a discipline examines those factors that either increase or decrease human wellbeing. It takes a multi and interdisciplinary approach in the critical examination of health and illness in its wider contexts of local, national, and international issues and compares the experiences of different nations, cultures, or groups. It is a research based subject that constantly seeks to add to current knowledge.

Students of the subject will concern themselves with the exploration of health as a human experience mediated by individual, societal and global contexts, a reflexive and critical evaluation of factors affecting health and its representations and an ability to engage actively in the discourses surrounding the concept of health and its representations.

Subject specific skills that can be gained by studying health studies are the ability to:

  • compare a range of health contexts, including individual and institutional, national and international
  • analyse health issues and information drawn from a wide range of disciplines
  • synthesise coherent arguments from a range of contesting theories
  • draw upon the personal and lived experience of health and illness through the skill of reflection and to make links between individual experience of health and health issues and the wider structural elements relevant to health
  • articulate theoretical arguments within a variety of health studies contexts
  • draw on research and research methodologies to locate, review and evaluate research findings relevant to health and health issues, across a range of disciplines.

To check the growing range of resources produced by the Subject Centre to support employability and the use of this profile (including the Skills and Attributes map) go to www.health.heacademy.ac.uk.

This profile, produced in 2004, is based on the QAA benchmark to be found at www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/benchmark/honours/default.asp


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