PhD Courses in Denmark

Content

In this course, we will explore the relations between biological, biomedical, institutional, and social aspects of multimorbidity, attempting to bridge the social and biological divide when understanding the complexity of multimorbidity as disease and as condition of life.

Multimorbidity is a growing challenge for both healthcare systems and society. Multimorbidity presents an increasing challenge to healthcare systems because it disrupts the disease-specific approach that dominates clinical practice, research, and health policy. Patients living with multiple chronic conditions often navigate between highly specialized healthcare services that are primarily designed to address single diseases. This creates a pressing need for more holistic and integrated approaches in both research and practice.

A key issue in current research is the fragmentation between biological, biomedical, and social perspectives. As a result, important interconnections—such as those between social determinants, disease trajectories, and biological mechanisms—are at risk of being overlooked. To develop more sustainable and meaningful solutions to multimorbidity, interdisciplinary research is essential. This means fostering collaboration across scientific traditions.

This PhD course offers a platform where doctoral students from various disciplines—such as medicine, public health, nursing, sociology, anthropology and biology—can learn to integrate their perspectives. The course emphasizes both theoretical understanding and methodological tools to understand and explore challenges related to multimorbidity.

The course is relevant for all PhD students working on, or interested in, complex health issues where solutions and new knowledge cannot be found within a single disciplinary framework. This includes those who aim to contribute to a more coherent, patient-centered, and socially responsive health research agenda.

Focus and Aim:

The course will support participants in reflecting on how their own PhD projects relate to broader ways of understanding and defining problems in multimorbidity research. In particular, we will explore:

a) how the participant´s PhD project is positioned in relation to other dominant ways of framing multimorbidity, and

b) how the participant’s PhD work may shape how problems are understood and which solutions are considered relevant.

The overall aim of the course is twofold:

• To help participants strengthen their own projects by approaching complex health issues from multiple perspectives.

• To offer tools and concepts that support interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration, with a focus on patient-centered and socially responsive research.

The course springs from an interdisciplinary research collaboration on Multimorbidity