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Unit of study_
HPOL5003: Analysing Health Policy
2025 unit information
Health policy analysis involves examining the components of health policy itself and the health policy process. It is the study of both the causes of policy decisions and their consequences. Accordingly, effective policy analysis requires addressing the complex character of policymaking, and the political, economic, social, cultural and historical context within which this occurs. Through elaborating on systems thinking principles, this unit aims to equip students with the skills to embrace this complexity and consider its inherently political character when undertaking health policy research and analysis. This requires comprehending the multiple, often conflicting factors configuring policymaking, recognising how these shape policy itself, and identifying how they favour the interests of some groups over others. In doing so, we adopt a multidisciplinary approach to familiarise students with the fundamental conceptual frameworks and methodologies that can inform a systemic health policy analysis, and encourage them to think critically about how such insights may be applied to their own professional research activities. By the end of the unit students will be able to: define policy and formulate research questions that can be used to analyse policy and policy processes; understand and apply systems thinking approaches to policy analysis; understand and explain the different methodological approaches and research paradigms that can be applied in policy analysis; apply a critical analysis to a case study of policy success or failure; identify appropriate study designs, research methodologies, data collection methods and analysis frameworks for specific policy research questions; and design a systems thinking-informed analysis of a current policy.
Unit details and rules
Managing faculty or University school:
Medicine and Health
| Study level | Postgraduate |
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| Academic unit | Public Health |
| Credit points | 6 |
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Prerequisites:
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None |
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Corequisites:
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None |
| Prohibitions:
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None |
| Assumed knowledge:
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None |
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:
- LO1. define policy and formulate research questions that can be used to analyse policy and policy processes
- LO2. apply a critical analysis to questions of policy success or failure
- LO3. understand and explain the different methodological approaches that can be applied in policy research
- LO4. identify appropriate research methodologies, data collection methods, and analysis for specific policy research questions
- LO5. design a systems thinking informed health policy research project
Unit availability
This section lists the session, attendance modes and locations the unit is available in. There is a unit outline for each of the unit availabilities, which gives you information about the unit including assessment details and a schedule of weekly activities.
The outline is published 2 weeks before the first day of teaching. You can look at previous outlines for a guide to the details of a unit.
| Session | MoA ? | Location | Outline ? |
|---|---|---|---|
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Semester 2 2024
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Normal day | Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney | |
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Semester 2 2024
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Online | Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney |
| Session | MoA ? | Location | Outline ? |
|---|---|---|---|
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Semester 2 2025
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Normal day | Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney |
Outline unavailable
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Semester 2 2025
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Online | Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney |
Outline unavailable
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Modes of attendance (MoA)
This refers to the Mode of attendance (MoA) for the unit as it appears when you’re selecting your units in Sydney Student. Find more information about modes of attendance on our website.
