Philosophy
EPH 1021 and EPH 1022
EXAM prep
Checklist (what to learn):
➔ JC meeting 1: Definitions in Public health:
Questions from articles:
- Each article describes how a certain definition has been established. What exactly
is being defined?
- What are the consequences of relying on this definition?
- What has played a decisive role in establishing this definition and how exactly?
Make sure you name concrete processes and factors and clearly explain their role
in your own words
- Summarize how definitions emerge in public health
Focus on 3 cases: Autism, ADHD and high cholesterol.
- Analyze these cases to see how definitions in public health are established, changed and
sometimes discarded and with which consequences.
➔ JC meeting 2: Risk: how we calculate it and what we miss:
How contemporary notions of public health risk have emerged and how they have
identified, defined and acted upon risks related to childhood overweight and
environmental threats to health.
Questions from Article 1:
- How the contemporary scientific notion of risk emerged?
- Why has the concept of risk has become so common in our society?
- How does the concept of health risk influence the way in which we think about
our and other people’s behavior? 3 examples
Questions from Article 2:
- How child corpulence has been defined as a public health crisis/risk?
- What are the arguments and assumptions underlying this definition?
- What are the implications of this definition for children “at risk” and their
families? Think of 3 examples
Questions from Article 3:
- What are the limits of the current public health understanding of health risks
related to the environment? Think of 3 concrete examples that refer to european
countries
- What are the assumptions underlying the individualized approach to the
management of environmental health risk?
, - How do individualized approaches to environmental risk management perpetuate
socioeconomic inequities?
➔ JC meeting 3: Metrics in Public Health:
3 kinds of Metrics:
- Maternal Mortality ratio
- DALYs (disability-adjusted life years)
- QALYs (Quality- adjusted life years)
General Questions:
- When was “your”metric created, by whom and for which purpose?
- How is “Your” metric calculated? What is included in its calculation and what kinds of
potentially relevant aspects are omitted? What are the implications of omitting these
aspects?
Questions Article 1:
- How are data for maternal mortality ratio collected and what are the consequences,
including consequences for certainty of results?
Questions Article 2:
- What are the values embedded in DALYs and what are the consequences, including
consequences of using DALYs in different contexts?
Questions in Article 3:
- How has the QALY concept gained its authority in the UK, what other options have been
sidelined, and what is the role of politics in the process?
- How is “your”metric being used now, who supports it and why?
(Summarize how metrics work in public health - on the level of data collection, in global public
health governance, in philanthropy, in national policies)
➔ JC meeting 4: Responsive interventions and what stays beyond calculations.
General questions:
- What aspects and whose voices were not part of the prevailing public health knowledge
in your article?
- How evidence is understood in your article? How is it defined or calculated?
- What are the public health consequences of exclusion and inclusion of different voices ?
EPH 1021 and EPH 1022
EXAM prep
Checklist (what to learn):
➔ JC meeting 1: Definitions in Public health:
Questions from articles:
- Each article describes how a certain definition has been established. What exactly
is being defined?
- What are the consequences of relying on this definition?
- What has played a decisive role in establishing this definition and how exactly?
Make sure you name concrete processes and factors and clearly explain their role
in your own words
- Summarize how definitions emerge in public health
Focus on 3 cases: Autism, ADHD and high cholesterol.
- Analyze these cases to see how definitions in public health are established, changed and
sometimes discarded and with which consequences.
➔ JC meeting 2: Risk: how we calculate it and what we miss:
How contemporary notions of public health risk have emerged and how they have
identified, defined and acted upon risks related to childhood overweight and
environmental threats to health.
Questions from Article 1:
- How the contemporary scientific notion of risk emerged?
- Why has the concept of risk has become so common in our society?
- How does the concept of health risk influence the way in which we think about
our and other people’s behavior? 3 examples
Questions from Article 2:
- How child corpulence has been defined as a public health crisis/risk?
- What are the arguments and assumptions underlying this definition?
- What are the implications of this definition for children “at risk” and their
families? Think of 3 examples
Questions from Article 3:
- What are the limits of the current public health understanding of health risks
related to the environment? Think of 3 concrete examples that refer to european
countries
- What are the assumptions underlying the individualized approach to the
management of environmental health risk?
, - How do individualized approaches to environmental risk management perpetuate
socioeconomic inequities?
➔ JC meeting 3: Metrics in Public Health:
3 kinds of Metrics:
- Maternal Mortality ratio
- DALYs (disability-adjusted life years)
- QALYs (Quality- adjusted life years)
General Questions:
- When was “your”metric created, by whom and for which purpose?
- How is “Your” metric calculated? What is included in its calculation and what kinds of
potentially relevant aspects are omitted? What are the implications of omitting these
aspects?
Questions Article 1:
- How are data for maternal mortality ratio collected and what are the consequences,
including consequences for certainty of results?
Questions Article 2:
- What are the values embedded in DALYs and what are the consequences, including
consequences of using DALYs in different contexts?
Questions in Article 3:
- How has the QALY concept gained its authority in the UK, what other options have been
sidelined, and what is the role of politics in the process?
- How is “your”metric being used now, who supports it and why?
(Summarize how metrics work in public health - on the level of data collection, in global public
health governance, in philanthropy, in national policies)
➔ JC meeting 4: Responsive interventions and what stays beyond calculations.
General questions:
- What aspects and whose voices were not part of the prevailing public health knowledge
in your article?
- How evidence is understood in your article? How is it defined or calculated?
- What are the public health consequences of exclusion and inclusion of different voices ?
