English > About the Department > Sections > Health Services > Research > activitiesresearchareas
Activities and key focus areas
The Section for Health Services Research comprises three research groups, all of which study health services: science and technology studies, health policy analyses of social and ethnic inequality in health, and functions and changes in the health system.
The section also includes The Unit of Medical Philosophy and Clinical Theory.
Mission
The section's research projects should provide knowledge that contributes to a deeper understanding and assessment of the function and effects of health services. This knowledge is acquired through studies of issues concerning philosophy of science and ethics, the development of health policies, organisation and technology developments within the health system, and user experiences. The projects must be of national and international relevance and provide significant contributions to our understanding and assessment of developments in health policies and the technological and organisational processes of change in the health system.
Research vision
In the coming years, the section's efforts will address the following topics through a range of research methods and traditions, including both qualitative and quantitative methods:
1. Science and technology studies
Based on the international research tradition within science and technology studies (STS), the section places a high priority on analysing the processes through which technology – including new genetic, reproduction and information technologies – develops within the health system and simultaneously (re)shapes it. The analyses consider the specific relations between research, health policies, clinic, industry, users and biological material that mediate the creation of new technologies as well as the organisational routines, courses of treatment and rationales that emerge as a result of this process. High-priority areas include the use of IT in the health system, pharmacogenetics and biobanks, and the fertility area. Overall, this research area provides insights into and research-based contributions to a health system that is increasingly reliant on technology and oriented toward technological innovation.
2. Health policy analyses of health inequality
Social and ethnic factors form an overarching theme for a number of high-priority health policy-oriented projects in the coming years. These include studies of the impact of social resources, migration and ethnicity on patients' needs and use of health services and on the staff's approach to various patient populations. Another high-priority research area is the categorisation of the population into social and ethnic groups within the health system, in health policies, and in health research and the consequences of this categorisation for the various parties. A third high-priority area is the issue of equitable service distribution and health, both on a national and an international level. These projects aim to provide additional insights into the opportunities and barriers experienced by various parties in connection with providing and utilising prevention, diagnostics and treatment considered in relation to the health system's existing organisation and services aimed at the general population. Additionally, analyses will be carried out of the equitability of service distribution to contribute to a normative study of inequalities in health that must be considered inequitable.
3. The function and changes of the health system
The rapid changes in the organisation, funding and functions of the health system make it both possible and necessary to carry out reflected and critical studies of change processes and their conditions and effects. The section's projects in this area aim to monitor current health reforms and the introduction of new initiatives in the health system in Denmark and other countries. Through process studies, comparative analyses and other approaches they will provide new insights into work procedures, decision-making processes, change strategies, and implications for the quality, integration, distribution and coordination of services as well as resource consumption. The analyses will explore the way in which patients engage in and experience specific prevention and treatment approaches and their participation in the development of new technology, including self-care programmes. The department will continue established projects on the development, validation and use of standardised questionnaires aimed at studying the patient perspective. New priority areas include the growing collaboration between public and private providers in the health sector as well as register-based studies of patients' use of health services. Thus, this research area will provide highly pertinent and current knowledge about targeting the health system's activities to patients' needs, the outcomes of these activities, and the way in which they are experienced by the patients and shape their possibilities for action.
4. Ethics and the philosophy of science
The section places a high priority on studies pertaining to ethics and the philosophy of science, and in coming years the section will focus on projects concerning three topics: One topic is naturalised, experimental ethics and morals in the perspective of evolutionary biology; in an international context, this is a very promising new research area, where moral assessments and decisions are studied through methods from neuroscientific moral psychology (fMRI), evolutionary psychology and sociopsychology as well as in the perspective of evolutionary biology. The implications for ethics as a philosophical discipline and the relevance of these implications for ethical considerations and decisions within the health system are considerable.
The second focus area concerns studies based on the philosophy/sociology of technology and the philosophy/sociology of science to address the interaction between theory formation and technology in medical practice, considered in relation to naturalised epistemology and STS – where in recent years, the discussion has revolved mostly around the concept of knowledge in the natural sciences, including medicine.
The third high-priority area in this context is evidence studies concerning conventional and alternative medicine – with a particular focus on randomised clinical trials and the classification of evidence.
Education
The section's education activities concern health policies and the organisation and function of the health system in the widest possible sense, as well as medical ethics and the philosophy of science. The section also handles most of the department's education activities concerning qualitative methods and the construction of questionnaires.
Future plans for developments within the field of education
In the future, the section hopes to be able to offer new elective courses in the areas of ethnic minorities, organisational analysis, and medicine, science and technology studies (e.g. public health genomics with an emphasis on the interaction between genetics and prevention initiatives), as well as contributing to the development of a new educational programme on medical IT development and offering additional courses on the structure and organisation of the health system.
Dissemination efforts
The section places a high priority on having the staff disseminate research findings in international scientific journals and taking part in the general debate through public lectures and the publication of articles in Danish newspapers and magazines as well as books aimed at the general Danish public. Two forms of general application-oriented dissemination rank particularly high in the department's profile:
1) Contributing expert opinion in relation to assignments for government authorities in Denmark, such as the National Board of Health and the Danish Council of Ethics, and for international organisations and authorities, such as the OECD, WHO, and the EU.
2) The publication of textbooks based on health services research, ethics and the philosophy of science, aimed at university students as well as bachelor students. Future textbooks will be published both in Danish and in English.