Public Health (Health Services Management stream)

This stream provides a foundation for the understanding of health services management by drawing on a wide range of academic disciplines and enables students to develop knowledge, understanding and capability in various scientific methods and fields of study relevant to strategic management. The stream is aimed at health service managers, planners and policy-makers or those who plan a career in these fields from high-, middle- and low-income countries.

Graduates from this stream go on to a range of management positions in ministries of health around the world, the UK National Health Service, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and management consultancies.

Objectives

By the end of this stream students should be able to demonstrate ability to apply knowledge of the core disciplines of public health, consisting of statistics; epidemiology; health economics; and social research, to real global health problems. In addition, students will be able to:

• analyse the principles, structure and functions of health systems, including their financial, organisational and policy-making processes and systems
• critically assess and apply a range of key management concepts and functions in a range of health care settings
• appreciate the role and contribution of economic theory, organisational theory and approaches to management in the field of health care
• show competence in critically evaluating and communicating research evidence
• apply knowledge of effective team-working and communication skills to solve problems and achieve specific goals.

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

Term 1

Students complete the four compulsory modules constituting the Public Health common core: Basic Epidemiology; Basic Statistics for Public Health & Policy; Introduction to Health Economics; and Principles of Social Research. In addition, students intending to follow this stream must take Health Services. The remaining module can be selected from Environment, Health & Sustainable Development; Health Policy, Process & Power; Health Promotion Theory; or Issues in Public Health.

Term 1 Module details (PDF 165K)

Terms 2 and 3

Students take a total of six study modules, one from each timetable slot. The list below shows recommended modules. There are other modules which may be taken only after consultation with the Course Director. Where only one study module is shown this is compulsory.

C1: Health Care Evaluation.

C2: Conflict & Health; Economic Analysis for Health Policy; Family Planning Programmes; Health Impact & Decision Analysis; Health Promotion Approaches and Methods.

D1: Economic Evaluation; Environmental Epidemiology; Medical Anthropology in Public Health; Population, Poverty & Environment.

D2: Organisational Management.

Term 2 Module details (PDF 212K)

E1: Integrating Module: Health Services Management.

E2: Analytical Models for Decision Making; Analysing Survey & Population Data; Health Systems; History & Health; Sociological Approaches to Health.

Term 3 Module details (PDF 109K)

Project Report

All students complete a relevant research project.

Please see the MSc Public Health overview page for further details.