Teaching plan for the course unit

 

 
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General information

 

Course unit name: Health and Welfare

Course unit code: 360934

Academic year: 2025-2026

Coordinator: Pedro Gallo de Puelles

Department: Department of Sociology

Credits: 6

Single program: S

 

 

Estimated learning time

Total number of hours 150

 

Face-to-face and/or online activities

60

(Students engage in lectures providing foundational knowledge, theoretical sessions with a practical component, group tutorials encouraging discussion and problem-solving and practical sessions involving the analysis of documents and materials.)
 

-  Lecture with practical component

Face-to-face and online

  

45
 

-  Problem-solving class

Face-to-face and online

  

15

Supervised project

30

Independent learning

60

 

 

Recommendations

 

Students should have taken and passed the following subjects:

  • Political and Social Intervention
  • Social Conflicts and Problems


Further recommendations

Some of the reading materials for this course are in English; students should possess a sufficient level of reading comprehension to understand and critically engage with the texts.

 

 

Competences / Learning outcomes to be gained during study

 

   -

Commitment to ethical practice (critical and self-critical capabilities/capacity to demonstrate attitudes consistent with accepted notions of ethical practice).
   -

Capacity for learning and responsibility (capacity for analysis and synthesis, to adopt global perspectives and to apply the knowledge acquired/capacity to take decisions and adapt to new situations).
   -

Creative and entrepreneurial skills (capacity to conceive, design and manage projects/capacity to research and integrate new knowledge and approaches).
   -

To recognize diversity.
   -

To take decisions and solve problems.
   -

To identify and evaluate the basic concepts of social inequalities, social differences, social capital and power.
   -

To analyse the transformations and evolution of contemporary societies and to make proposals in relation to their probable, possible and desirable futures.

Learning objectives

 

Referring to knowledge

This course applies key theoretical concepts, methods and approaches in sociology to the study of topics related to the health and well-being of the population. The consequences of a lack of health and wellness at both individual and social levels are analysed. The course also engages with related disciplines, including social policy, anthropology of health, sociology of ageing. Topics addressed include: theories of health and well-being in contemporary society, the impact of inequalities on well-being, well-being across the life course, the social costs of inequality, biomedical, social and economic models, inequalities in health and healthcare, and the influence of sociocultural and socioeconomic factors on health and on patterns of health service use. Other areas examined are the role of the patient, doctor–patient relations, healthcare professional careers, institutions and organisations, healthcare models and systems, determinants of healthcare policies, resource scarcity and prioritisation, social and professional values, and ethics. The approach is mainly practical and is based on the theory and methodology typical of the discipline, combining both global (comparative) and local (Catalonia) perspectives.

On completion of the course, students should be able to:

  1. Identify the models and theories that explain social phenomena related to health and well-being.
  2. Recognise the indicators used in the study of health and well-being.
  3. Identify the determinants of health and the use of healthcare services, as well as their implications for equality.
  4. Identify the fundamental elements of the processes of illness and ageing.
  5. Understand the most common healthcare models, their challenges and limitations.
  6. Understand the main elements involved in the analysis of healthcare policies (procurement, purchasing, financing, planning, choice, etc.) from a global perspective.

 

 

Teaching blocks

 

1. Health, Well-being and Society

*  Definitions of health and well-being; objective and subjective indicators; health-related quality of life; determinants of health and well-being; well-being across the life course; social and structural determinants; social capital and health; mechanisms of action; lifestyles and risk; inequalities in health and well-being; axes of inequality (social class, education, gender, origin, age and location); corrective measures addressing inequalities.

2. The Experience of Health and Illness

*  The role of the patient; medicalisation; stigma; chronic illness and impairment; risk and uncertainty; professional–client relations; quality of life; death and dying; biomedical and social models; medical technologies and progress; active ageing; dependency.

3. Healthcare Organisation and Policies

*  Healthcare environment; health policy; healthcare professionals; clinical and economic autonomy; medical pluralism; power and negotiated order; informal carers; healthcare models and systems; care provision and mitigation; equity and efficiency; public health; healthcare financing; malpractice; assessment and evaluation; alternative medicine; consumerism and management; crisis, health and well-being.

 

 

Teaching methods and general organization

 

Students are expected to undertake the following activities:
a) Read key texts and research in the field.
b) Search for and identify high-quality theoretical and practical information on health and well-being.
c) Work with audiovisual and other materials related to the course, with the possibility of giving oral presentations.
 

 

 

Official assessment of learning outcomes

 

Continuous assessment consists of the following activities:

— A final examination covering all assigned reading materials, class debates and lecturer presentations (60% of the final grade).

— Submission of two individual assignments as proposed by the lecturer during the course (40%: each worth 20% of the final grade).

Repeat assessment. Students who fail the continuous mode of assessment are entitled to be re-evaluated. The resit comprises a written examination covering the general content of the subject.

 

Examination-based assessment

Single assessment consists of the following activities:

— A final examination covering all assigned reading materials, class debates and lecturer presentations (100% of the final grade).

Students who fail the single mode of assessment are entitled to be re-evaluated. The grade awarded in the resit is the final grade for the subject. The resit consists of a written examination based on the reading materials assigned by the lecturer and the contents covered in class, which are available in the Virtual Campus.

 

 

Reading and study resources

Check availability in Cercabib

Book

GABE, J. ... [et al.]. Key concepts in medical sociology. Los Angeles (Calif.) [etc.]: SAGE, 2013

Catāleg UB  Enllaç

Conrad P (2007) The Medicalisation of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Catāleg UB  Enllaç

Illich I (1995) Némesis Médica: la expropiación de la salud. Barral Ed.

Catāleg UB  Enllaç

 “Sociología de la salud: salud, malestar y sociedad desde una mirada crítica”. Coord. Arantxa Grau-Muñoz y Aina Faus-Bertomeu. Editorial Tirant Lo Blanch. Valencia. ISBN: 978-84-19376-06.

Catāleg UB  Enllaç

Article

BORRELL C. ... [et al.]. Evolución de las desigualdades sociales en salud en Cataluña. Medicina Clínica [en línia]. Desembre de 2011, vol. 137 [consulta: 28 de juny de 2016]. Disponible a:http://www.elsevier.es/es-revista-medicina-clinica-2-articulo-evolucion-las-desigualdades-sociales-salud-90095377

Gallo P y Gené-Badía J (2016)
Evidencias y reflexiones sobre el impacto de la crisis en la salud la sanidad. Panorama Social, 22:79-92.

https://es.scribd.com/document/317526526/Panorama-Social-Nº-22-Un-balance-social-de-la-crisis-pdf

Mackenbach JP (2012) The persistence of health inequalities in modern welfare states: The explanation of a paradox. Social Sci. and Medicine 75:761e769. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612002055

Electronic text

Wilkinson R y Marmot M (2003) Los determinantes sociales de la salud. Los hechos probados. Organización Mundial de la Salud.

http://www.msssi.gob.es/profesionales/saludPublica/prevPromocion/promocion/desigualdadSalud/docs/hechosProbados.pdf

Dolan P, Layard R et al. (2011) Measuring subjective wellbeing for public policy: recommendations on measures. Special Paper 23, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science. http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/special/cepsp23.pdf