PY7014 - Health Over the Life-Span (2015/16)
Module specification | Module approved to run in 2015/16, but may be subject to modification | ||||||||||
Module status | DELETED (This module is no longer running) | ||||||||||
Module title | Health Over the Life-Span | ||||||||||
Module level | Masters (07) | ||||||||||
Credit rating for module | 20 | ||||||||||
School | Faculty of Life Sciences and Computing | ||||||||||
Total study hours | 200 | ||||||||||
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Assessment components |
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Running in 2015/16(Please note that module timeslots are subject to change) |
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Module summary
This module focuses on health over the life-span from birth to death.
Prior learning requirements
None
Module aims
- To provide a developmental and lifespan perspective on health and health behaviours;
- To enable students to understand how life-span changes in health and health behaviour can be explained in terms of social and psychological changes that occur in human development across the life-span;
- To provide a framework for understanding cumulative changes in health and how [health] events across the lifespan can impact on health in later life;
- To provide a critical health psychology aspect to all areas of lifespan bringing in wider social and individual context into the discussions about health such as gender, sexuality, and culture
- To enable students to understand how developmental aspects of health psychology can be used to examine and evaluate more important general issues in the field, such as the development and maintenance of
- health inequalities.
Syllabus
Health in infancy, childhood, adolescent, midlife and old age; developmental perspectives on risk behaviours, stress and coping, women and men’s health, minority health and support and attachment.
Learning and teaching
Twelve 3 hour, class-based sessions with lectures, presentations and seminar work. As part of this module students are required to engage in problem based learning through research of relevant topics. Students will also be required to carry out substantial independent learning.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this module students will be able to:
• Appreciate variations in health and illness across the life span and the significance and meaning of ageing;
• Understand the relationship between psychological development and age-related changes in health behaviours;
• Critically evaluate the application of developmental psychology to health and health behaviours.
• Develop a reflexive view on how individuals experience aging throughout their life course
• Have an understanding of the ways in which the stages of the life course are contextualised and constructed.
Assessment strategy
The module is assessed in two ways:
1. A reflective case study (3,500 words).
2. Students are expected to attend all scheduled sessions. Although there may be occasions when circumstances prevent students from attending (e.g. illness), a minimum of 80% attendance is required overall. For this module this means attending a minimum of 10 of the 12 sessions. Students who leave after signing the register but before the session completes will not be given credit for attendance.
Bibliography
Bartholomew K & Horowitz L (1991) Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61: 226-264.
Dozier, M (1990) Attachment organisation and treatment use for adults with serious psychopathological disorders. Development and Psychopathology, 2:47-60.
Earle, S., Komaromv, C & Bartholomew, C (2008) Death and Dying: A Reader. OUP.
Lachman, M.E. (2004) Development in midlife. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 305-31.
Lazarus R.S. & Folkman S (1984) Stress, Appraisal and Coping. Springer, New York.
Lee, C & Owens, RG (2002) The Psychology Of Men's Health. OUP
Penny, G., Bennet, P. & Herbert, M. (eds) (1994). Health Psychology: A Lifespan Perspective. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Rushforth, H. (1999). Practitioner review: Communicating with hospitalised children: Review and application of research pertaining to children’s understanding of health and illness. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 683-691.
Special Issue of Developmental Psychology (1996). Development, Transitions, and Adjustment in Adolescence. Vol. 32, No. 4, pp 571-801.
Werner, E.E. & Smith, R.S. (2001). Journeys from Childhood to Midlife: risk, resilience and recovery" Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press
Whitman, T.L., Merluzzi, T.V. & White, R. (Eds) (1999). Life-Span Perspectives on Health and Illness. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.