Public Health stream

This stream provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary to improve the global health of populations, communities and particular groups within them. The focus is mainly on high- and middle-income countries. The emphasis is on the use, development and critical evaluation of conceptual models, evidence and methods of analysis, and on practical, effective interventions.

Graduates from this stream work in health care, health policy and public health organisations at local, national and international level in service and academic public health roles.

If your main interest is public health in low-income countries please refer to the MSc Public Health in Developing Countries.

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 health problems. In addition, they should be able to:

• critically assess key public health functions;
• demonstrate knowledge and skills in a range of topics related to public health;
• formulate, implement and evaluate appropriate policy responses to public health problems;
• show competence in critically evaluating and communicating research evidence.

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

Term 1

Students take the four compulsory modules of 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 Issues in Public Health. The remaining module can be selected from Environment, Health & Sustainable Development; Health Policy, Process & Power; Health Promotion Theory; or Health Services.

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 module is shown this is compulsory.

C1: Health Care Evaluation; Primary Health Care Revisited: Concepts, Tools & Experiences in low and middle income countries; Drug, Alcohol, Tobacco Use and Public Health; Research Design & Analysis; Study Design: Writing a Study Proposal.

C2: Conflict & Health; Design & Analysis of Epidemiological Studies; Economic Analysis for Management & Policy; Health Impact & Decision Analysis; Health Promotion Approaches and Methods; Qualitative Methodologies; Statistical Methods in Epidemiology.

D1: Communicable Disease Control in Developed and Middle Income Countries; Economic Evaluation; Environmental Epidemiology; Medical Anthropology in Public Health; Social Epidemiology.

Term 2 Module details (PDF 212K)

E1: Principles and Practice of Public Health.

E2: Advanced Statistical Methods in Epidemiology; Analytical Models for Decision Making; Analysing Survey & Population Data; Control of Reproductive Tract Infections/ Sexually Transmitted Infections; 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.