Research in Health Studies
With the goal of optimizing well-being of persons through intense investigation of health systems and policy and mobilizing knowledge across health care in an effort to promote better health for all, scholars in Western's School of Health Studies focus their work around three main research areas that address key societal issues and foster collaborative and integrated thinking from a multidisciplinary perspective.
Health Promotion
Health is a multidimensional concept that can be viewed from multiple perspectives. Health promotion helps to enable people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. The process of enabling, and what is seen as enabling, is shaped by the paradigm and construct of health used in research and/or practice. We explore issues associated with promoting health throughout the life course from youth, through adult and into later life and the elderly.
Systems Analysis and Policy
Health systems are often in a state of flux. Influences by governments and organizations change the landscape of health and health care delivery. Systems Analysis explores current health system issues to develop actionable change processes that integrate individual, organizational and societal elements for lasting change. This is done in the context of critical health policy issues across health care sectors, human resources and consumer participation in health care.
Knowledge Mobilization
The reciprocal and complementary flow and uptake of research knowledge between researchers, knowledge brokers and knowledge users to make connections between research/expertise and policy/practice in order to improve outcomes in health organizations or sectors through effective (co-) creation, sharing, leveraging and application of knowledge.
