For many people, health is one of the most important issues in their lives. But at the same time, many keep up unhealthy behavioural habits. meer lezen
How to help them? To start with, you could educate people - individuals, but also at worksites and in government settings – about good health and promote healthy behaviour. That isn’t as easy as it sounds though; helping people to adopt a healthy lifestyle is quite a challenge, since a mix of personal, environmental, social and political factors influence individual behaviour. That is why there is a clear need for health promotion experts, who can develop programmes and policies that aim at improving health.
Why this programme?
Are you interested in helping individuals to maintain their health and well-being? Do you like working with groups such as employees, children, older people or patients, and would you like to know how best to address their health problems, how to motivate them to change unhealthy behaviour, find out what reasons they could have for their behaviour? Would you like to contribute to environments and organisations that are conducive to healthy living? This programme combines aspects of psychology, communication, epidemiology, biomedicine, sociology, political science and statistics, training you as an expert in promoting health and wellbeing. Because after all, a gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure!
HEP revolves around understanding unhealthy behaviours and developing, evaluating and implementing health promoting interventions at the individual, community and policy levels to change these behaviours. You address questions like: How can we change our environment to make it easier to engage in healthy behaviour? How can we use social networks to promote health? Why do so many people intend to change their lifestyle, but fail to actually do it? With practical skills training included in each course and the option to conduct your thesis abroad, this programme gives you the theoretical, practical and intercultural toolset you will need to launch your career.
Career prospects?
Experience has shown that all students rapidly find good jobs, sometimes even before graduation. You can look for work in: regional, national and international health institutes (e.g. GGDs, RIVM, SOAids, Dutch Cancer Foundation, WHO), mental welfare, intervention development, consultancy, insurance companies, governmental authorities, academia (e.g. as a PhD student).
