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Global Justice, Health and Wellbeing - SOC00068H

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  • Department: Sociology
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: H
  • Academic year of delivery: 2025-26

Module summary

In this module you will gain insights into global health inequalities, especially between the ‘global north’ and the ’global south’, and explore the consequences for physical and mental health of increasing global connectivity. You will think about how health and disease has been transformed by mobile populations during cultural, political, technological, and environmental change and investigate the health impacts of divergent political circumstances.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 1 2025-26

Module aims

How are health, wellbeing and care shaped in a globalised world? Given the scale of the problems we face in this area, achieving transformative social justice, when responding to global inequalities in health and well-being, can seem overwhelming. Through the lens of health and well-being this module explores the complexities informing current debates through a series of practical case studies from the Global South and the Global North, that will develop your critical, analytical and creative skills. You will come to understand explanations about global health inequalities by exploring how some lives are accorded greater moral value than others and consider potential solutions that empower health equity. We will draw on the sociology and anthropology of health, postcolonial and intersectional theories, as well as ecological approaches, to critically engage with current policies and practices, as a basis for facilitating social justice.

Module learning outcomes

  1. Articulate an understanding of the global dimension of health challenges and the assumptions underpinning policies aimed at providing care worldwide.

  2. Identify and evaluate debates and sources discussing global inequalities of health, wellbeing and access to appropriate care.

  3. Demonstrate an ability to undertake critical analysis of varied healthcare systems and sociocultural contexts within a global framework

  4. Draw upon and synthesise a wide range of theories to generate ideas of practical relevance to achieve transformative global justice.

Module content

  1. Global health vulnerability: a conceptual introduction

  2. Decolonising global health policies and the value of sustainable development

  3. Is mental health a global problem? Psychiatry and colonisation

  4. Reproductive health and social justice

  5. Formative assessment 2 hour

Consolidation Week

  1. Assessment Week 1 hour

  2. The climate crisis and its consequences for understanding health and well-being

  3. The gendered consequences of kinship and the practices of care

  4. Disability and vulnerability

  5. The politics of well-being

  6. Decolonising health and wellbeing as the basis for establishing transformative change

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100.0

Module feedback

Formative work will include in-session feedback on students’ approach to the summative assessment. The formative assessment will provide practice for the summative essay, which is in line with MLOs 1-4.

The summative assessment is a 3000 word written essay. Students will receive an overall mark and grading according to clearly defined criteria for assessing their knowledge, skills and abilities in line with MLOs 1-4. They will also receive written feedback showing areas in which they have done well, and those areas in which they need to improve that will contribute to their progress.

Indicative reading

  • E. Annandale (2014) The Sociology of Health and Medicine, 2nd edn, Polity.
  • J. Butler (2010) Frames of War. When is Life Grievable? Verso
  • W. Cockerham and G. Cockerham. Health and Globalization. Polity
  • S. Davis (2009) Global Politics of Health. Polity
  • D. Dickenson (2008) Body Shopping. Converting body parts into profit. One World Press.
  • S. Elbe (2010) Security and Global Health. Polity
  • J. Tritter et al. (2010) Globalisation, Markets and Healthcare Policy. Routledge.
  • P Wald (2008) Contagious: cultures, carriers and the outbreak narrative. Duke University Press.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.