Health Policy and the Health System I

Catalog description

This course builds students’ knowledge and skills to enable them to analyze key issues in the distribution of health and illness in society, the organization of the healthcare system, and the relationship of one to the other. We first consider the evolution of the U.S. healthcare system and the roles of health policy and management and public health in current debates. We then present an international perspective on the U.S. healthcare system, the role of stakeholders in the policymaking process and the roles of government in the health system. We conclude the introduction to this class with a glimpse into the future by focusing on the evolution of patient roles, demography and technology. In the second part of the course, we explore divergent perspectives for analyzing population health and health care: clinical; epidemiologic; sociological, geographic and cultural; economic; and ethical. We focus on social determinants of health, racial, ethnic and income disparities among population groups, and how health policymakers and managers can work collaboratively with leaders in housing, education, transportation, and other sectors to promote public health. In the third part, we consider selected issues in health policy and management and how the perspectives in the second part can shed light on them. We focus on the following issues: population health and the issues it raises about the social determinants of health and the health care system; quality of care and the debates about how to measure and assess it; the opioid epidemic; and the challenge of assuring access to healthcare services while simultaneously rationing them.