Public Health Science, Health Economics

Overview

About

The distribution of health and disease in the population is partly shaped by the distribution of power, opportunities, and socioeconomic resources, including access to adequate education, health care, safe housing and workplaces, clean water and food. The availability of social support, resources to meet daily needs, and the possibility to live a life free of discrimination are unequally distributed between and within countries, which in turn affects the prevalence of health and disease. 

Studying public health science in Sweden means that you will live and observe a country with extended structures for improved population health, such as universal welfare and health care systems. Despite this, you will also become aware of public health challenges even in a country with an extended welfare system such as Sweden.  

Through the focus on human rights, gender, and inequalities in health, our programme is closely focused on social, economic, and environmental sustainability, and is clearly connected with several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Public Health Science, Health Economics programme of the University of Gothenburg responds to these complex challenges by involving teachers from a variety of professional backgrounds such as medicine, epidemiology and law. 

If you choose to specialize in health economics, you will gain advanced knowledge of the relationship between economic development and health, and skills on how to design and evaluate public health interventions. Courses focus on the importance of society’s organization and other structural factors (political, economic, and cultural) for the health status of populations, including studies of the social determinants of health, such as income, poverty, economic inequity, and access to health care.