A minor offers you the chance to deepen or broaden your knowledge during your studies. Do you want to specialise within healthcare? Then follow one of ESHPM's minors below.
Minors at Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management:
In this minor, we apply psychology, behavioural and health economics to understand and develop interventions to improve health and behaviour.
People generally attach great importance to their health, citing it as one of the most important aspects for a happy life. Yet many people do not adhere to a healthy lifestyle and therefore seem to behave contrary to their own life goals. Smoking, physical inactivity, rejecting vaccination and screening or not following doctors' recommendations are popular examples. This raises the question of how to change behaviour and improve health and well-being. This is a question that concerns individuals, schools, companies and governments and is the focus of this minor. In recent decades, there have been many different approaches to how behaviour change can potentially be achieved. In many fields, but especially in economics, individuals are traditionally seen as "rational decision-makers", i.e. they know what they want and make reasoned choices to achieve their goal of better health and happiness. In this view, policies or interventions to promote behavioural change are only needed when individuals are misinformed or their choice is limited.
Smarter Choices for Better Health is specifically for students from other universities who have a minor space of 30 EC. Thus, this minor is not open to students of ESHPM.
Healthcare spending is increasing rapidly. This minor uses insights from behavioural and health economics to study how this spending can be done more efficiently. This is done from different perspectives: individual and organisational in the main subject, and hospital, national and global perspectives on health and behaviour in the electives.
Good healthcare is essential for a long and healthy life. Much progress has been made in recent decades, but many countries still face enormous challenges when it comes to financing and providing high-quality healthcare. On average, health and life expectancy have improved, but there are large differences between and also within demographic groups. Lifestyle and preventive measures play an important role in this context. Academics from the disciplines of health economics, behavioural economics, public health and global health are joining forces to make healthcare systems more equitable and effective with existing financial resources. The results of this research will be reflected in this minor.
This 30 EC minor consists of four modules: a major introductory module of 15 EC, which can also be chosen as a 15 EC minor (course code GWMINOR323), and three electives of 5 EC each from Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management.
Full minor offer
Want a broader orientation? There are also opportunities to take a minor at another faculty or university, for example TU Delft or Leiden University. The overview and minor registration can be done via eduXchange.