Fertility, ageing communities, migration, rising inequalities – the headlines are dominated by these pressing global population challenges. Population trends impact everything from geopolitical stability, to carbon emissions, from labour markets to sexual health and from family relationships and care to economic growth. The world of data is also changing, opening new fields of digital demographic enquiry. Trained demographers are essential to providing population projections and analysis underpinning critical global trends and to expand the boundaries of demographic data science for real-world impact.

Join our MSc Demography and Health to study population dynamics and their interaction with global health. Over one year (full time) or two years (part time or split study), you’ll learn to analyse processes that govern population change, including reproductive behaviour and social relationships, exposure to health risks, economic growth, population policies and climate change. You will study in a research-oriented environment, taught by staff conducting important work on health, mortality, fertility and migration and working in partnership with teams across the globe to advance demographic science.

This programme is also available online.

Funding

Our degree is recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), for students planning to undertake the MSc + PhD research, and the MSc is also recognised for funding by the Population Investigation Committee. Scholarships from these bodies and others are available each year. LSHTM also offers the annual Basia Zaba Memorial Scholarship in Demography. 

What you will learn

• Learn demographic methods and theory, including population projections; dynamics of fertility, mortality and migration; data science and analytics; computational demography; programming; life-course research and survival analysis
• Learn to present results of analyses through written and oral presentations
• Take a critical, interdisciplinary approach to the study of population change and its interactions with wider social, political and environmental change
• Discover how we can use evidence-based approaches to develop and evaluate population programmes
• Formulate critical, policy-relevant, research questions and use demographic and health data to address them
• Develop practical skills through student-led seminars, data analysis tasks and mini-research projects

Understand how to analyse and exploit emerging data sources to unravel contemporary population dynamics and their interactions with social, economic and environmental change. You will also study how to conduct demographic research in situations where data are lacking, learning from experts who are pioneering new methods of data capture in such settings.

You’ll be taught by demographers, data and social scientists, and reproductive health specialists. Hear about their specialist research on everything from improving demographic data collection in pandemics, to evolutionary and anthropological demography, to the relationship between mortality and inequality, as well as from a range of external speakers working in the population field.

All MSc Demography & Health students will receive core training in formal, mathematical demography and quantitative methods including population dynamics and projections and will study contemporary issues in population studies. Beyond these core subjects you can choose to specialise. If you have a quantitative background, you may focus on more advanced computational demography and programming on the Population Data Science pathway, otherwise, if you come from a social science, community or policy background, you may choose to focus on the interface between demography, health and public policy on the Population Health and Policy pathway. The modules available on each pathway differ and are detailed below.

Your research project will give you a chance to examine an area in more depth. Past students have explored topics such as the demographic impact of climate change in the Gambia, migration from Mexico, spatial analysis of infant mortality in Victorian London, the impact of family planning programmes in Tanzania, and interactions between ageing and employment in the UK.

Who is it for?

Social and political scientists, mathematicians, geographers – this course is perfect for anyone interested in population and its relation to health and wider social and environmental change. You might be a professional working in government or for an NGO where demographic skills are in high demand. Or you might have just finished your undergraduate degree and want to pursue an MSc which will equip you to contribute solutions to some of today’s most pressing global challenges.

Demography and Health graduates are in great demand. Some move into policy and practice, implementing population analytics and critical thinking for Governments, international organisations and NGOs. Others launch their careers in academia, contributing to deeper understandings of population change. You’ll graduate with a range of analytical and critical skills that are essential on the world stage, and with an MSc which has a global reputation in this field. You’ll find our graduates working in rewarding roles at UN organisations, government statistics offices, NGOs, think tanks and WHO.

Duration

One year full-time; part-time or split-study over two years. Ways to study explained.

Postgraduate Certificate and Postgraduate Diploma

This programme also offers students the opportunity to register for a Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) or Postgraduate Diploma (PGDip). 

Both the PGCert and the PGDip can be studied full-time. If you study the PGCert, your study and assessments will be concentrated in the Autumn Term (October-December) with some assessments in January. If you study the PGDip you will additionally take modules and assessments in the Spring and Summer Terms (January-May). Further details on compulsory and elective modules and when they run are available on the Structure tab.

Intercalating study

Find out about intercalating this programme.