Development Studies.

The Department of Development Studies (DS) is one of the five departments within the School of Public Health and Social Sciences (SPHSS) of Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS). There are ten members of academic staff including; 1 Associate Professor, Senior Lecturer, 3 Lecturers and 3 Assistant Lecturers and 2 Tutorial Assistant. Six (6) of them having acquired PhDs from various re-known Universities across the world thus bringing home a wealth of skills,

experience and competences to share with stakeholders especially students. It has a wealth of experience in conducting research and community service activities within Tanzania and beyond and collaborates with a number of partner Universities, Civil Societies and Research Institutions and not least the communities we serve.

Its members of academic staff teach across the University in cross cutting subjects in the field of development, health management, health systems and health economics, and it is also host to one postgraduate programme: Master of Arts in Health Policy and Management (MAHPM) with a total of 20 students. The department also engages in teaching the same courses to postgraduate students in all other schools at MUHAS and participates in supervision role.

The Department teaches all undergraduates by exposing them to the theories, practice and problems of social development, both generally in the third world as well as in more detail, Tanzania and Africa. The training enables students as future professionals to relate these social processes to health and healthcare as well as to ensure that the biomedical model which predominates in current understanding of health, is enriched with a greater acknowledgement of health as a product of societal and development contexts. The department also participates in training the Master of Public Health students and coordinates the Master of Arts in Health Policy and Management. In Research and Consultancy, the Department focuses on healthcare financing and health equity. Currently, members in the department are engaged in health insurance research in collaboration with the universities of Aarhus in Denmark and Kumasi in Ghana. Other collaborating institutions in healthcare systems research include the University of Cape Town, Makerere University in Kampala, and University of Zambia.

Main functions of the Department of Development Studies

A. Teaching

The Department of Development Studies has overall responsibility for the teaching and evaluation of different undergraduate courses for all first degree students in first and second year. This include Theories of social development and critical issues in health and  Health systems and  development trends. The academic staffs of this department are fully involved in teaching and evaluation of other three undergraduate courses specifically for Bachelor of Science in environmental Health Sciences in second year. These courses are Organization management, Urbanisation and human settlement and elective project for third year students. Further, the department shares the responsibility of teaching and evaluation of students with other departments from the school of Medicine  for the following courses: Professionalism and ethics course (both in first and third year), Nutrition, Tropical disease control, Management, community medicine and supervision of the final year elective projects in the same school.

At the postgraduate level, the department has overall responsibility of teaching and evaluation of the Master’s of Arts Health Policy and Management. At the same level, the department shares the responsibility of teaching and evaluation with other departments from the School of Public Health and Social Science for the following masters courses: Msc – Behavioral change, MPH regular and executive tracks, Mmed (Community Health), Msc. Tropical diseases and control,  Msc. Applied Epidemiology,  Msc. Applied Epidemiology and Laboratory Management and Msc. Environmental and Occupational  Health. Finally, the department has fully responsibility for   supervision of PhD students enrolled within and outside the department

B. Research and Consultancy

The Department of development studies operates in line with core functions of the university in which research and consultancies forms an integral part. The researches and consultancies from this department are fundamental in health care to bridge the divide between clinical medicine and social medicine as it includes multi-professional collaboration with other departments from different schools.

The department constitute of the academic staff with immeasurable capacity in carrying out researches and consultancies in broad area of development and health due to the presence of multi-professional workforce.

The researches and consultancies capacity from this department covers the following specific areas: Health systems (financing, reforms, structural adjustment programs), HIV/AIDS (including marginalised communities and gender aspects),  globalization & health, development policies formulation and analysis, health policy analysis, human resources for health, epidemiological transition, task shifting and service delivery, evaluation of public health interventions, economic evaluation of healthcare programs, employment (child labour, women employment), social protection, governance and health, health management information systems, management and leadership in public health, gender and health, equity, lifestyle diseases, primary health care ,reproductive health, sexual abuse, adolescents health, livelihood strategies, microfinance, life skills, needs assessment, education accessibility, environmental management, food security, energy, urbanization, development planning, social exclusion, communication strategies and  community participation in planning and management of public resources.