Examination Of Theses Related To Sustainable Development And Health


Kayar G., Küçükkurt A. C.

Trakya Üniversiteler Birliği VI. Uluslararası Sağlık Bilimleri Kongresi, Edirne, Türkiye, 30 Kasım - 01 Aralık 2023

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Yayınlanmadı
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Edirne
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Türkiye
  • Acıbadem Mehmet Ali Aydınlar Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Aim: Sustainable development is defined as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In order to enhance social well-being and fulfill the responsibility of preserving our planet, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. The Sustainable Development Goals consist of 17 objectives and 169 targets, with the aim of achieving them by the year 2030.

Since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, various developments have been made towards achieving these goals. However, according to the United Nations 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report, the world is not yet on track to reach the 2030 Targets. In fact, the report indicates that there have been various deviations from the path to achieving these goals compared to four years ago.

Sustainable development encompasses environmental, economic, socio-demographic, and health factors. The health factor stands out as a crucial factor that directly influences social well-being due to factors such as lifestyle, environmental factors, socioeconomic status, and access to healthcare, which are defined as determinants of health. In this context, it can be said that health is in intensive interaction with all the elements that make up sustainable development. In this context, it can be said that health is in intensive interaction with all the elements that make up sustainable development.

The aim of this study is to draw attention to the concept of sustainable development and to examine scientific studies related to health and sustainable development in our country in order to present the current situation.

Methods: In order to determine the theses to be examined within the scope of the study, the Council of Higher Education (CoHE) National Thesis Center was utilized. A search was conducted in the database using the term "sustainable development" with the fields of the "search in, access type, and thesis type" set to "all". As a result of the search, the 1399 theses were refined by filtering for the terms related to health that yielded results, such as "patient(1)", "hospital(5)", “health(16)”, “healthcare(17)”, “medical(2)”, “pharmaceutical(2)”, “nurse(1)” and “medical(2)”. This refinement process led to the identification of a total of 36 theses related to the relationship between sustainable development and health. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were performed on 35 theses determined as a sample.

Results: According to the analysis results, it was determined that scientific research at the thesis level related to the concepts of 'sustainable development' and 'health' increased in Turkey in and after the year 2020. The research covered 21 different departments, with the most studies conducted in the departments of economics (5) and health management (5). It was determined that 30 theses were written in Turkish and 5 theses were written in English. Content analysis of these theses revealed that each thesis contributed to at least one sustainable development goal. Specifically, 22 theses were found to be related to the third sustainable development goal, 'Good Health and Well-being,' and 9 theses were linked to the twelfth sustainable development goal, 'Responsible Consumption and Production.

Conclusions: It is recommended to work on targets and sub-goals that are important to show progress, such as the goal of increasing vaccination coverage, which has shown a decline in the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report, or climate action, air pollution and related health effects, which are stated to be no progress. Expanding the number of English-language publications can broaden the scope of the research's impact. To maintain and further accelerate the increasing number of theses published in and after 2020, awareness can be raised among students.

 

Keywords: sustainable development goals, united nations, health, bibliometric analysis