Institute for International Health and Development - IIHD

Short Courses

This course critically examines population theories and in the light of subsequent development policy development and practice, analyses the reproductive health approach advocated at the influential International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994.

Potential participants should note that this is not a clinical course. Course participants explore the socio-economic, political and organizational dimensions of reproductive health.

Content includes:

• constructions of sexuality
• conferences and contestation: historical development of conceptualisations of sexual and reproductive health
• rights-based approaches
• theories about the relationships between development, population growth and reproductive health and how these inform SRH programmes
• politics and economics of sexual and reproductive health interventions (eg concerning assisted reproductive technologies)
• current sexual health (eg STIs) and reproductive health issues (infertility, abortions, maternal mortality, FGM)
• gender-based violence (including medical violence, eg forced sterilisations, forced abortions, harmful treatments of fertility)
• sexual and reproductive health across the life cycle (special attention for youth and elderly)
• sexual and reproductive health and men
• sexual and reproductive health promotion

The course includes a visit to a local health facility offering specialist services to adolescents. Other specialist visits may be arranged as required. The assessment is an individual 3,000 word paper on a topic selected from a choice of subjects that reflects current issues in the sector.

Credit Rating: 15 SCOTCAT/5 ECTS