杏吧论坛

Prof Martin Knapp

This course is available on the MSc in Global Health Policy, MSc in Health Data Science, MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing, MSc in International Health Policy and MSc in International Health Policy (Health Economics). This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

The proposed course should appeal to students interested in the challenges of, and policy responses to mental illness across a wide range of societies and economies. 

Priority will be given to students from the Health Policy Department.

Students are required to have some knowledge of health systems or mental health issues. 

The aim of this course is to consider how public policy can be shaped to address the many personal, social and economic challenges posed by mental illnesses, across the full life-course (indeed, some mental illnesses start earlier, with origins in the womb). Mental health will be considered in a range of contexts: high-, medium- and low-income settings. An important emphasis will be on the global nature of the challenges, and the need to find responses that have relevance across different societies.

The strong associations with disadvantage will also be a core theme running through the course, linked to social and other determinants of (mental) health. Other key areas of policy-making will be covered, including how decision-making balances the roles of different stakeholders, particularly individuals with lived experience of mental illness, families and communities. We will look at whether and how policy decisions are based on considerations of (and evidence about) the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and viability of treatments, and the social impact of prevention and interventions in different cultural contexts and at different life-stages.

Students will discuss issues and strategies on how public policy – not just in the health sector but more widely – can play crucial roles in prevention (or at least risk-reduction), access to and funding of treatments, recovery and re-integration, social and economic inclusion, and so on. Some of the material in the course will be based on research recently or currently undertaken at 杏吧论坛.

Course outline (by week)

1. What is mental illness? 

2. Responses? What are the societal and policy responses to mental illness? 

3. St