In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), no studies have been documented to analyze the equity aspects of public health policies. The aims of the study were to identify policy documents in the KSA relevant to public health and to explore whether these include an equity approach. Twenty health-related documents were identified from various ministries’ websites and analyzed through directed content analysis. The results showed that the term “equity” was neither defined nor explained in the documents and suggestions on how to tackle health inequities were lacking. None of the suggested measures communicated an explicit focus on promoting health equity or the social gradient. Several upstream, midstream, and downstream measures were suggested to improve justice and public health for the people. The study reveals that there is a need for an in-depth assessment of the policy measures across sectors and their influence on health equity to inform future health policy development and action in the KSA.

Background: The five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) have long traditions of social welfare policies that have eradicated poverty as part of their goals. The purpose of this study was to increase our understanding of why child poverty is still significant in the Nordic countries despite existing strategies. Methods: A qualitative analysis of Nordic government documents and reports between 2007 and 2019 was carried out to track changes in public health priorities and political measures and to determine the similarities and differences between the five countries. Results: In all countries, most of the measures were universal, such as benefits during pregnancy, paid parental leave before and after the child was born, paid parental leave related to children’s sickness, child allowances, day care, free health care for children and support for disabled children. National policies aimed to reduce social inequalities and child poverty exist in all five countries, but unaffordable housing, unequal disposable family income distribution and unequal income distribution at local municipality levels seem to be obstacles to reaching national policy goals. Conclusions: Despite comprehensive universal measures to eradicate child poverty, inequalities are significant and increasing in some of the Nordic countries. This might be due to a lack of proportional universalism, where universal measures are in place in all Nordic countries, but with a lack of scale and intensity proportional to the children and families at risk. The significance of eliminating social inequalities needs to be emphasised at the local level.

Background: Exports of entire educational programs from countries with established universities to other countries are increasing rapidly. Scant literature exists on education exports and related educational and pedagogical knowledge transfer. Evidence in this area helps us to develop better and more cost-effective future export programs, render knowledge transfer more efficiently and enhance intercultural learning in general-all important in the current globalized world. Aim: To share the experiences and lessons learned during the educational export project of two Bachelor of Science programs in health sciences from a Danish university to a newly established Saudi Arabian university. Methods: There were two contract periods: one of 4.5 years and another 1-year extension. An accredited program from Denmark was exported with the goal of gradually transferring the knowledge of the exporting staff to the local staff. Teams of one senior and two juniors traveled from the exporting university to the receiving university to deliver courses lasting 4 weeks each. Implicit knowledge comes from the personal experiences of the authors in the preparation, collaboration, administration, management and teaching of the two BSc programs. Explicit, written data come from the evaluation reports, for which 24 students and 31 staff members were interviewed, and from a review of document filing and administrative course material. Analysis was conducted based on the Neville and Warren theory of knowledge transfer in educational settings and using SWOT analysis. Analysis and Conclusion: Opportunities for knowledge transfer were not fully implemented; however, during the contract years, exchange and collaboration between the staff groups increased. The successful and well-received education export with sustainable knowledge transfer requires thorough and collaborative preparation and needs-based implementation. Learning to know each other's working culture and creating mutual trust and acceptance take time and readiness to exchange expectations, views and experiences on equal footing.

Introduction A student-centered teaching method engages the student to take responsibility for his/her own learning. In this pedagogical approach, the role of the teacher has become to be a supportive coach rather than an authority and one-way superior knowledge provider. A teacher with good teaching skills actively involves and engages students in the learning process. Qualified teacheŕs competence consists of the substance of the subject taught, pedagogical skills as well as of the teaching experience gained after teacher training. Lessons learnt In our case we organized a 9-day workshop to enhance the teaching skills of teachers in one department of our collaborator university in Saudi Arabia (KSA). The workshop included lectures on-site and individual and group assignments such as integrating active learning methods into teaching. The pedagogical workshop was a part of the cross-cultural knowledge transfer project between SDU and (case 1) university in KSA in the Bachelor level education in 2013-2017. The project disclosed the cultural differences in teaching and learning and the different traditions of education. We found that there was a strong tradition of memorizing among students in KSA, which reflected into the attitudes of both teachers and students. This workshop was the first pedagogical training for the most of participants and it revealed that they lacked theoretical knowledge on teaching, e.g. the concepts of student-centered teaching were new to the participants. However, they had extensive teaching experience and strong knowledge of the content of the subjects taught. The acquired knowledge of the basic approaches of student-centered teaching expanded participantś thoughts on how they could better interact with students instead of one-way lecturing. In the workshop, dialogue was used as a teaching method, and participants found the sharing of learning experiences in a peer group a useful and new way to learn at work.