About International Health

There is a need for a Department of International Health at FHML that has a European outlook which originates from the content of the key-activities of the European Union. The “Europe” of the department, however, is not limited to the Member States of the EU, the department’s activities cover the WHO-EURO region.

INTHEALTH influences national, transnational, and European policy and institutes taking advantage of the geographical situation of Maastricht in a euregional setting. Its education and research place local, regional, and national health developments into a wider European and global perspective.

Next to its educational and research activities, the department is active in European projects which are related to education and research in health.

The department is leading in and outside the faculty in conceptualizing the European perspective towards health.

The following key research themes have been identified:

• Public Health in Europe
• European Public Health
• Global Health Europe

These are moderated by the processes of:

• Europeanization
• European Integration

“Public Health in Europe” describes the different Health Systems in Europe, analyses their performance and tries to find best practice solutions.

“European Public Health” concentrates on European solutions of health problems which involve several Member States or are cross cutting issue.

“Global Health Europe” looks at Europe a zone that has to interact with the outside world.

Departing from the Department’s rationale and main objectives the future development of INTHEALTH is proposed to be guided by the concept of “Europeanization” and “European Integration” in Public Health.

While European Integration describes the process of integrating states into the European Union, Europeanization offers the possibility to study the development of institutions of governance at the European level.