Leveraging Collaboration for Social Determinants of Health Pedagogy Through Virtual Learning and Multidisciplinary Integration
Leveraging Collaboration for Social Determinants of Health Pedagogy Through Virtual Learning and Multidisciplinary Integration is a peer-reviewed article for the Pedagogy in Health Promotion: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (PHP) academic journal by the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE). PHP's primary scope is the advancement of education for researchers and health professionals involved in health promotion and public health.
The article, co-authored by Brian Lain (Utrecht Graduate School of Life Sciences, Netherlands), Jyothi Thrivikraman (Leiden University College, Netherlands), Aarti Kawlra (IIAS, Netherlands), Tharaphi Than (Virtual Federal University, Myanmar; Northern Illinois University, USA), presents innovative practices for teaching social determinants of health (SDH) in undergraduate education, using the themes of place, words, food, and craft as the foundation for trans-regional and multidisciplinary discussions.
Based on this thematic model, they developed a course that brought together students from the Netherlands and Myanmar, as well as insights from the humanities, social sciences, and the life sciences, to examine SDH. Through a virtual exchange between students from the Netherlands and Myanmar, where a civil war disrupted education and devastated the health and well-being of people, students discussed topics that ranged from words describing menstruation in their mother tongue to their visions for a more just and equitable future. In these ways, democratic and deliberate spaces were provided for students to gain a multifaceted understanding of SDH. Most importantly, by providing education to those without access and cultivating trans-regional knowledge exchange, privileging local knowledge, as articulated by the students themselves, the curriculum embodied the very ideals the SDH framework strives for. The authors invite future SDH courses to explore virtual learning and multidisciplinary integration to expand the meaning of a university classroom.