Population Health: Teaching Using Webinars – Lifestyle Medicine in Practice

Population Health: Teaching Using Webinars

With the health inequality gap increasing, there is a growing need to address health at population level. At the University of Manchester (UoM), final year medical students learn about Population Health (PH) through a series of webinars. In 21/22, webinars were delivered to 446 final year medical students during a 4-week PH/ careers clinical placement. Expert speakers were recruited to deliver short talks on successful PH interventions in their area of practice. A panel of 2 lecturers and 1 student facilitated conversations on themes addressed and commonalities. Webinars helped students consider PH within the context of a pandemic. A thematic analysis showed that webinars increased awareness of wider determinants of health, importance of holistic care and health promotion/ disease prevention. Student feedback demonstrated that the webinars augmented their clinical placement, allowing them to gain an understanding of health needs of a population.