I’ve been taking a very interesting course, on-line and on my own time, created by Sir Michael Marmot and his team at the Institute of Health Equity in collaboration with the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal). Its title and sub-title are:
Social Determinants of Health: What Is Your Role? Explore the social, environmental and economic factors that affect health and how health professionals can improve health equity.”(1)
The course platform is FutureLearn, to which I’ve included a link in the references at the end of this post. This system has been very well thought
out for on-line learning, with articles, short video clips, and even discussion questions so that participants can learn from each other and share information across borders and continents.
The questions and responses, by the way, are written rather than by live voice or video chat. We can also ask each other specific questions, using a direct messaging system something like Twitter. All you need is a computer and internet connection!
Social determinants of health (SDoH) are becoming increasingly important for bioethics, for several reasons. First off, an individual’s childhood SDoH will have an enormous impact on their later overall health – from birth through to the end of life.
Second, a patient’s SDoH can negatively impact their ability to follow medical advice; for example to follow medication plans, to be able to cover any associated costs, to take time away from work or childcare for follow-up healthcare.
Finally, there’s a proven effect of SDoH on the risk factors for many medical conditions and diseases. Although in some instances the underlying mechanisms remain to be discovered.
To provide you with just a taste of this topic, here are some of the highlights of the course outline:
- An overview of the stages in the career path of health professionals where health inequalities can be tackled.
- Evidence and Information on the Social Determinants of Health
- Health system roles: as employers, managers and commissioners
- Working in partnership: within the health sector and beyond
- Advocating for change: for the patient, community and health system”(1)
Although the Institute of Health Equity is based in London, England, there’s an important Canadian connection. Dr. Marmot chose to include, prominently, an action taken by a group of physicians here in Canada:
“Advocacy can take the form of writing directly to ministers of health. This is what a group of Canadian Physicians did. They wrote a letter to Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, Hon. Dr. Eric Hoskins advocating for a basic income guarantee.”(1)
Once I’ve completed the course I’ll post my comments and thoughts, so check back in a few weeks; the course duration is three weeks. In the meantime, this is a fantastic reminder to all my friends and colleagues in bioethics that there are many ways to continue our learning and professional development; outside of traditional university courses and classrooms.
If SDoH doesn’t interest you, FutureLearn offers a number of other online training courses that could be of interest to those of us in bioethics. You can check the target audience in the Overview of each course, under the heading of “Who is the course for?”(1) This SDoH course, for example,
“is designed for healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, midwives, dentists, community health workers, health administrators, allied health professionals and carers.”(1)
And, I’d add, those of working in biomedical ethics!
Reference:
(1) BMJ Learning, and the Institute of Health Equity (IHE) at University College London (UCL). Social Determinants of Health: What Is Your Role? FutureLearn. 2016. Online course:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/social-determinants-of-health