• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

Making, Using and Contesting Evidence

Module description

This module will provide you with the conceptual and practical resources to discuss, evaluate and communicate evidence about health and wellbeing across disciplines, sectors and audiences, including different publics and policy actors. By studying the methodologies of different disciplines, you will understand how diverse sources of evidence about health and wellbeing are used, by whom, and with what effects.

The module is suitable for individuals from a range of graduate/professional backgrounds, and is especially suited to those interested in pursuing interdisciplinary pathways. There are no pre-requisite modules. However, students will be expected to have some experience in the social sciences, humanities and/or medical sciences.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module will interrogate what counts as evidence in terms of understanding and responding to health and wellbeing. You will be introduced to research paradigms, models of evaluation, and theory and practice of working in engaged ways with a range of publics. Recognising that global histories of Western domination have had the effect of limiting what counts as authoritative knowledge, the programme will aim to be responsive to the problems of colonial and racialised privilege and discrimination in health research. Throughout the module, you will be invited to consider how to use evidence to engage effectively with diverse stakeholders, and will build skills in communicating complex ideas across both publics and policy makers.  

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Describe and understand diverse sources of evidence about health and wellbeing used across disciplines
• 2. Communicate the value of drawing on multiple sources of evidence for transforming understandings and responses to health, health care and wellbeing.
• 3. Critically evaluate evidence claims made from a range of disciplinary perspectives
• 4. Understand the importance of research that engages with multiple policy, professional and public perspectives

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Think critically, analyse, challenge, and identify convergences across diverse disciplinary understandings of evidence relating to health and wellbeing.
• 6. Demonstrate an ability to comprehend how particular histories of Western domination have shaped and limited knowledge in health research.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument developed through the mode of assessment.
• 8. Present complex arguments effectively in writing and/ or orally to specialist and non-specialist audiences.

Syllabus plan

The module’s precise content may vary from year to year, but topics are likely to be drawn from the following:

• What is a ‘fact’ and how do we know it is true?
• The history and social construction of epidemiological evidence
• Sense making through narrative and literary sources
• Decolonising health research
• The politics of health commissioning and funding
• Legitimising evidence – whose voices and experiences count?
• Trust and engagement
• Communicating health
• Mobilising evidence across disciplines
• The research-policy interface

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Affun-Adegbulu, C., & Adegbulu, O. (2020). Decolonising global (public) health: from Western universalism to global pluriversalities. BMJ Global Health, 5(8), e002947.
• Allsop J & Saks M. (2018) Chapter 2: The Principles of Health Research’ in Saks, M., & Allsop, J. (Eds.). (2012). Researching health: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. 3^rd edition Sage.
• Fitzgerald, D., & Callard, F (2015). "Social science and neuroscience beyond interdisciplinarity: Experimental entanglements." Theory, Culture & Society 32, no. 1: 3-32.
• Garnett, E., Green, J., Chalabi, Z., & Wilkinson, P. (2019). Materialising links between air pollution and health: How societal impact was achieved in an interdisciplinary project. Health, 23(2), 234-252.
• Greenhalgh, T. (1997). How to read a paper: getting your bearings (deciding what the paper is about). BMJ, 315(7102), 243-246.
• Rekdal, O. B. (2014). Academic urban legends. Social Studies of Science, 44(4), 638-654.
• Gonzalez-Polledo, E., & Tarr, J. (2016). The thing about pain: The remaking of illness narratives in chronic pain expressions on social media. New Media & Society, 18(8), 1455-1472.
• Renedo, A., Komporozos-Athanasiou, A., & Marston, C. (2018). Experience as evidence: the dialogic construction of health professional knowledge through patient involvement. Sociology, 52(4), 778-795.

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Index of Evidence https://www.indexofevidence.org
• Health Evidence Network https://www.euro.who.int/en/data-and-evidence/evidence-informed-policy-making/health-evidence-network-hen

Key words search

health; wellbeing; evidence; knowledge; policy; epidemiology; narrative; interdisciplinary