Course Outline - McMaster University

Course Description:
This course is intended for students who have had little or no professional work
experience in international or intercultural Canadian settings and who desire an
orientation to the priorities, issues and strategies for health and development. The course
will provide students with a structured introduction to health issues in an intercultural
Canadian and international context, and challenge them to build a conceptual framework
that is useful analysing these problems. During this course students will be introduced to
the literature of development, political economy, medical and social anthropology and
international and intercultural theories for nursing practice in these settings.
OVERVIEW
This course provides an introduction to health issues, priorities and strategies for health
and development, concepts and theories relevant to primary health care, culture and
development will be examined. The topics are as follows: dependency and
modernization theories; immigration policies; primary health care; comparing and
contrasting national health care systems; health profile of developing countries and
aboriginal communities; intercultural theories; influence of culture on health beliefs and
practices; alternative and complimentary health care practice; women: their status and
roles in selected countries; participatory development; and, role of international
organizations.
OBJECTIVES
Upon completion of the course, the student will:
1. Analyze the impact of a country’s political, economic and social development on the health of its
population and its health care system.
2. Identify the positive and negative impacts of “modernization” on the health status of a population
or groups within populations.
3. Describe the historical development and relevance of Primary Health Care in Canada and
internationally.
4. Describe Canada’s health care system, including the professional, “folk” and popular sectors, as
well as that of at least one other country, and assess the adequacy of the system to respond to the
defined health needs of the population.
5. Describe how factors such as lifestyle, physical and social environments and biology determine
the health of populations.
6. Critically analyze selected intercultural theories and models and explain their application within a
health care context.
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