Course Developing complex interventions in Public Health

The course Developing Complex Interventions in Public Health P231/11 is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University.

Criteria for participation: University degree in public health, sport science, medicine, dentistry, nursing, physiotherapy or master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Requirements for participation: Prior knowledge on complex interventions can be beneficial but is not required.

Aim: The aim of this course is to introduce frameworks for designing public health interventions. Including developing skills to work with program theory and logic models. Socio-ecological models of health will form the basis of the course. The course will include basic introduction to evaluating, with a subsequent additional course in evaluation of complex interventions (March 2024).

Learning outcomes: 

• Insight into complex interventions based on the UK Medical Research Council Model
• Skills for working with program theory and logic models
• Insight in developing complex interventions addressing co-production, co-creation and PPI
• Insight in contextual elements that can influence successful change
• Overview of different complex intervention evaluation strategies.

Workload: The full workload of the course is expected to be 51 hours

Content: Course participants will gain an insight into the theoretical models used in relation to developing of complex interventions in everyday practice. The participants will gain experience to recognize and adopt appropriate methods systematically based on a sound understanding of mechanisms of behavior change. Furthermore, the course outline is based on socio-ecological models and whole system approaches to increase awareness of a holistic orientation regarding design and evaluation of health programs. Moreover, new approaches such as co-production, co-creation and PPI are introduced. The course introduction will focus on defining health behavior interventions, to establish a common language, before introducing development perspectives on complex interventions. The participants will gain an insight into the concepts of logic models, feasibility testing and piloting to ensure that large-scale evaluations are not conducted prematurely; and how this phase is important for latter evaluation designs.

Teaching method will be lectures and a high level of interaction with participants’ presenting their own practical examples of interventions. The course relies on peer-feedback as well as other feedback forms, to enhance learning. Preparatory work is expected through forwarding a project description of own or shared study, which will be develop on throughout the course. Concrete examples, methods and techniques will be taught in the course, aiming to provide a toolbox to the participant at the end of the course. Student driven workshops will also be part of the program, developing on provided examples.

Instructors: Associate Professor Knud Ryom (Head of Course), Professor Helle Terkildsen Maindal, Researcher Anders Blædel Gottlieb Hansen & Senior researcher Anna Mygind

Venue: Aarhus University, Aarhus. 

Participation in the course is without cost for:

• PhD students, Health Research Year students from Aarhus University
• PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
• PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

• 29 January 2025 09:00 - 16:00
• 30 January 2025 09:00 - 16:00
• 31 January 2025 09:00 - 16:00