This course is designed for master's-level students across DLSPH, with a particular focus on Master of Public Health (MPH) students. (Doctoral students — DrPH and PhD — would be welcome if it fits in their program and if numbers permit).

An MPH-level course in health politics would focus on how politicians create policy from their dynamic power struggles, in the face of unpredictable contingencies that often move very quickly. The course will introduce students to frameworks they can use to analyze Canadian health politics, which are also useful in modelling other political systems — including autocratic systems. It will take a highly applied approach using current developments, political documents, case studies, and guests actively working in health politics to help students become attuned to the political context affecting their work and develop lifelong habit of tracking the political landscape.

This is a highly applied course, where students will work in groups as if they were a team of political consultants. Together, the class will explore a model for political analysis through three units. In each unit, students will be assigned to analyze the likely actions of a specific political player on a given issue and then will work together to model different players' likely political interactions towards a policy outcome.