In the world we live in today, there are millions of people who rely on the help and support of others to maintain a healthier lifestyle because the necessary resources and knowledge are often lacking.

The North-West University (NWU) has a strong focus on exactly that – applying our research to make the world a better and healthier place for our citizens.

The NWU’s MHSc in Transdisciplinary Health Promotion affords postgraduate students with access to doctoral studies, which will further increase the much-needed candidate pool for leadership in health.

Globally, but also nationally, community healthcare workers are recognised as effective agents to deliver a range of preventive, promotive and curative health services and to contribute towards reducing inequities in access to care. Strengthening community healthcare is part of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) global strategy on human resources for health: “Workforce 2030”.

With its strong focus on health promotion, especially among African people with a lower socio-economic status, the  Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research (AUTHeR) in the NWU's Faculty of Health Sciences fully adheres to the WHO’s call. By taking a holistic look at the environment, they are developing realistic and sustainable solutions for health issues in the community.

AUTHeR works together with a variety of different sciences and their research to identify complicated problems in communities. Here, medical practitioners, psychologists, health scientists, social workers and other experts from various disciplines take hands to conduct in-depth research to discover and develop solutions for complicated health issues.

According to Dr Nicole Claasen, programme leader for the Master of Health Sciences (MHSc) degree in Transdisciplinary Health Promotion, their main focus is on the pro-active approach towards nurturing healthier lifestyles, rather than implementing reactive measures to cure diseases.

“It is clear that when experts from various disciplines work together, they have an opportunity to identify and find sustainable solutions for extensive health issues. There is an increasing need for health professionals to address health problems in an innovative way as the world of health becomes more complex.

“The uniqueness of the this MHSc degree is that the future workforce in health promotion will be able to think beyond their single discipline and learn to function as an expert in their discipline in a larger multidisciplinary team to implement health promotion in a holistic way.”

She says the programme will enable students from various disciplines to educate and assist communities to increase control over and take responsibility for their own health. “Health promoters will be able to act as leaders, consultants, educators, specialist practitioners and researchers in the various fields of health promotion.”

The MHSc in Transdisciplinary Health Promotion places huge emphasis on empowering people to take responsibility for their own health by focusing on the following three activation areas:

• Health promotion and well-being activation: A dynamic process that enables people to take responsibility for and improve their own well-being.
• Sustainable diets and food systems: A healthy diet from a sustainable food source and system is an active and important aspect in terms of health and well-being.
• Sustainable community development and engagement: People can only live an optimally healthy life if they are in healthy communities. We take sustainable and measurable projects to the communities in order to create awareness about health in order to increase their well-being.

The MHSc consists of two compulsory theoretical core modules, providing the necessary grounding for the third module in applied transdisciplinary health research. The three modules are completed in a minimum of one year, as for full- or part-time studies.

For more information about this programme, please contact Dr Nicole Claasen at nicole.claasen@nwu.ac.za, or telephonically on +27 18 299 2099.

For applications and fees, please visit:

http://www.nwu.ac.za/postgrad-application-process

http://www.nwu.ac.za/postgrad-application-form

http://www.nwu.ac.za/postgraduate-bursaries