Academic Supervisor : William d'Hoore

Contact person : Claudine Wangneur

Medico-social and Hospital Sciences Unit

ESP - Clos Chapelle aux Champs, 30 bte 30.37, 1er étage, local A 145, 1200 Bruxelles

Tel. 027643439 - Fax 027643435 - wangneur@hosp.ucl.ac.be

The "community health programmes" for the second cycle of university studies ("licence") in Public Health Sciences, orientation "Health Promotion," aims to help the student become capable of solving community health problems by focusing on the global comprehension of the health of individuals, communities and their interactions with the environment, both on a social and physical level. In more precise terms, this means :

• identifing the medico-social problems of a target community or population, the notion of the medico-social problem or health situation also involving situations needing some kind of intervention before the problem is apparent ;
• creating, planning and carrying out pertinent community health programmes relating to problems considered to be priority;
• evaluating the health programmes carried out;
• communicating with the various bodies involved (politicians, target population, professionals, community health structure managers, institutions such as hospitals or schools) ;
• coordinating the development of the community health programme activities within a given structure or region ;
• managing human resources, techniques and financing of the programmes.

One preparatory year is organised to respond to the rules of the decree relating to the specific exams ("passerelles") between non-university higher education and university education (c.f. preparatory year access conditions for the HONU "licence").

The programme is accessible to students holding the first university study cycle diploma ("candidat"), subject to training complements aimed to compensate the lacks of initial training in Health and Human Sciences studies.

Students who, during the course of their previous studies, followed and successfully completed one or several university courses may, after analysis of their application, be dispensed from these courses. With the agreement of the programme manager, courses given at UCL and judged to be equivalent in terms of timetable volume, may replace some courses on this programme.

Applications should be addressed to the secretary's office of the Medico-social and Hospital services.

40 hours

Observationperiod, 40 hours.

The student should follow a minimum of 45 hours of courses, including the following :

N.B.: With the agreement of the programme manager, courses given at UCL and judged equivalent in terms of training content may replace courses on this programme.

The objectives of the apprenticeships are as follows :

• to adopt a systemic vision of the work involved in community health and in particular a multidisciplinary vision centred on the population,
• to acquire the know-how necessary for the carrying out and evaluation of the community health interventions

The apprenticeship in a community milieu will be carried out in combination with the writing of the thesis.

The timetable volume of the apprenticeship will depend on the student's prior studies :

• 200 hours for a student without any professional practice ;
• 100 hours for a student with experience in health care ;
• in the work place for a student with practice in a community health milieu.

The thesis must be carried out within a structure where an activity in the domain of health care is practised. It may be combined with a period of work experience.

The objectives are the following :

• to master the appropriate methodologies relevant to the study of community health questions ,
• to acquire the methodological know-how required for the study of health problems and the factors determining the state of health of the population, the evaluation of the treatment and the elaboration and validation of new strategies for treatment (related or non-related to a research context).

There are as many evaluations as there are courses and each lecturer will specify the kind of evaluation chosen, at the beginning of the course. Detailed instructions are available for the end of course thesis. All procedures are consistent with the general rules and regulations of the University.

C.f. the presentation of the "licence" programmes linked to Public Health.