PLU-6048: KNOWLEDGE AND CHANGE IN PUBLIC HEALTH (course in french)

 

This seminar will not be offered for a undetermined period.

Registration

Nicole Roberge
Technicienne en coordination du travail de bureau
Faculté de médecine - Administration de la santé
Université de Montréal
Phone : 514 343-7990
Email : nicole.roberge@umontreal.ca 

Introduction

Throughout developed and industrialized societies, health care accounts for a significant share of resources and collective wealth. It is also the subject of considerable and diversified research efforts that focus, amongst other things, on the development, understanding and evaluation of clinical, managerial and regulatory practices in health care systems.

For many observers, enhancing the performance of practices in the health field will increasingly require a more systematic reliance on research data and the adjusting of scientific activity to the imperatives and demands of clinical, organizational and policy settings. The notion of evidence-based practice, initially promoted in the medical field, reflects the increasing need for closer ties between the scientific community and practice settings. Furthermore, research organizations increasingly support this type of linkage by implementing strategic programs and research funding policies that promote   partnerships between universities and practice settings. All these development suggest a significant change in the way researchers frame research issues, generate knowledge and promote their findings. This also has important repercussions on the strategies employed by professionals, administrators and policy makers to meet challenges they face in practical settings. The patients and the general population are given an opportunity to play an active role and bring their input into the decision making process. This seminar is based on the assumption that the foundations and the consequences of the current growing social demand for closer formal links between the scientific community and practice settings have not been studied in a systematic way that would allow for a fair appreciation of the scope of these changes.

More specifically, this seminar explores the interface between knowledge and practice from three perspectives: 1) the links between practice and knowledge from the perspective of knowledge theories; 2) the mediating factors between knowledge and practice; and 3) the recent development of scientific policies and their repercussions on both research activities and researchers. Among other things, it will focus on the following issues: the notion of “evidence” or “evidence-based data” in complex action systems and the equivocal nature of normative prescriptions in the areas of policy, administration and evaluation; the relative statuses of scientific knowledge and practical knowledge and their interactions; the limits and potential of institutions and instrumentation devoted to knowledge transfer in practice settings; the advantages and disadvantages of various ways of supervising research; and the emergence of new methods for producing knowledge and implementing research training.

General Objective

Generally speaking, this seminar seeks to develop an understanding of the issues involved in the search for a closer interface between scientific knowledge and practice settings.

Specific Objectives

By the end of this seminar, the participants will know how to:

• Define the interface between practices and knowledge in terms of various scientific paradigms;

• Analyze the role played by reflexivity and normativity in the production of knowledge and scientific prescriptions;

• Illustrate and analyze the potential of various strategies for increasing exchanges between scientific communities and practice settings.

• Define and analyze various methods of knowledge production and their relationships with practice settings;

• Define and understand the evolution of scientific policies with regard to the applicability of knowledge and their impact on research activities.

Teaching Method

The course uses two teaching methods: 1) lectures by professors; and 2) exercises and home-work prepared by students and discussed in class. Students must attentively read the recommended readings before each class.

Target Clientele

This seminar is intended for doctoral students whose research is focused on the issues involved in the production and the use of applied research in the fields of social policy, administration of health systems, and clinical practice. Masters’ students may also register for this course as independent students, with the approval of the professors responsible for the course.

This seminar is given by

Drs. Jean-Louis Denis, jean-louis.denis@umontreal.ca  (Université de Montréal)

Pascale Lehoux, pascale.lehoux@umontreal.ca  (Université de Montréal)

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