This course is not currently offered, please contact the school.

Course description

Public Health for Paramedics will introduce the students to the concepts of public health and evidence-based practice. The public health component of the course will provide students with an understanding of common health issues within Australia and the factors influencing health and disease within various population groups and communities. Major topics include: the application of public health principles and perspectives to community medicine; public health assessment and understanding risk; community interventions; health services; and the social organisation of health care. Students will relate this knowledge to their future role as paramedics, gaining an understanding of how community health issues influence their role and how the ambulance service fits into the wider health-care system. The Evidence-based practice component of the course will introduce students to the principles and practice of evidence-based healthcare. Major topics include: introduction to EBP and translation of uncertainty into an answerable question; acquiring research information; internal validity (critical appraisal of evidence for validity); quantitative aspects of diagnosis and screening; effect size (relative estimates of comparisons in epidemiologic studies); precision of study effects; judging the importance of study effects (clinical significance and absolute risk); application of appraised evidence to practice. Students will learn the skills to identify, critically analyse and evaluate evidence and how to implement that evidence into their daily practice as a paramedic. Students will have the opportunity to participate in interproffesional learning as lecture material will be sourced from the relevant MBBS Global & Community Medicine (proposed) courses, but tutorials and assessment will be tailored specifically to Paramedic Science students.

Archived offerings