MSc Community Eye Health

This course aims to provide eye health professionals with the knowledge and skills required to reduce blindness and visual disability in their populations. The training would enable them: to develop a community oriented approach to eye health in line with the aims and objectives of VISION 2020, The Right to Sight; to plan for appropriate services for their societies' eye health needs ; to facilitate a personal development in public health; to engage with the local, national and international network of health professionals, to reduce and prevent blindness in the world.

It is estimated that there are 161 million visually disabled people in the world, 37 million of whom are blind (excluding refractive error data). The majority of these people live in developing countries. An estimated 80% of blindness is avoidable. The major avoidable causes of blindness are cataract, trachoma, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, refractive errors, vitamin A deficiency and onchocerciasis. Appropriate planning and implementation of eye health services is required to address this global health problem.

Graduates from this course are expected to and encouraged to enter into careers with ministries of health, universities and NGOs involved in developing health services to prevent blindness and improve vision.

For further information on the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH), go to our website at www.lshtm.ac.uk/cru or www.iceh.org.uk.

Objectives

The course is designed in keeping with the aims, priorities and strategies of VISION 2020, The Right to Sight. The purpose of training in community eye health is to reduce eye diseases, visual loss and disability in a community through a planned and strategic application of appropriate preventive and therapeutic measures, which are integrated into the delivery of health care at primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

Training in Community Eye Health extends the training in clinical ophthalmology which is focused on individual patients, to a consideration of the eye health of whole populations - how this can be assessed, resourced and evaluated. This task requires specific skills not usually included in clinical ophthalmic training. This course does not include any clinical training and is not appropriate for people without a background in clinical ophthalmology.

Programme specifications - showing which of the various elements of the Course support and achieve each of these specific Objectives.

Term 1

After a one-week orientation period, students take a total of six modules as follows:

Compulsory: Epidemiology of Blinding Eye Diseases; Skills for Field Projects in Eye Care; Eye Care Programmes; Basic Statistics for PHP; Basic Epidemiology; Introduction to health economics.

These modules are designed to equip the students with skills in understanding and identifying the magnitude of visual disability in populations and how eye health services are designed to address the problem.

Terms 2 and 3

Students take a total of six modules, one from each timetable slot. Where only one module is shown this is compulsory. Other modules are available after consultation with the Course Director.

C1: Primary Health Care: Planning Management & Evaluation; Research Design and Analysis; Health Care Evaluation.

C2: Design & Analysis of Epidemiological Studies; Qualitative Methodologies.

D1: Childhood Eye Disease & Ocular Infections.

D2: Non-Communicable Eye Disease.

E1: How to Plan & Implement a VISION 2020 project.

E2: Skills, Resources & Technology for VISION 2020

The above 2 study unit need to be taken together.

Further details for the course modules can be found here.

Project Report

Students will complete a research project on an appropriate topic. Students undertaking projects overseas will require additional funding of about £1,500 to cover costs involved.

Course Duration

Full-time for one year or split study over two years. Students taking the course by split study over two years attend full-time for part of Year 1, and then undertake the remainder of the course in Year 2. The split can occur anytime between the Christams break and the end of the formal teaching in May, by prior arrangement with the Course Director. Paper 2 may be taken at the end of Year 1 or at the end of Year 2. Paper 2 must be taken at the end of Year 2. Interested applicants should indicate their choice on the application form.

Entrance Requirements

Either a degree in medicine or a second-class honours degree of a recognised university in science/health-related subject. Students are expected to be health care professionals involved in eye care, or to have an appropriate work experience.