Ageing populations, shifting fertility rates, migration, growing inequalities - these are the demographic forces driving today’s global headlines. Population dynamics affect every aspect of our world, from political stability and climate impact to economies, health, and family life. As the data landscape continues to evolve, new avenues for digital demographic research are emerging. Expert demographers are crucial for generating the population insights that shape global trends and for driving innovation in demographic data science with tangible, real-world benefits.

Join our online MSc Demography and Health to study population dynamics and their interaction with global health. This is an intensive online programme that can be taken either full time (one year) or built to work alongside your employment part-time over two years. You’ll learn to analyse processes that govern and interact with population change, including reproductive behaviour and social relationships, exposure to health risks, economic growth, and climate change.

This programme is also available on campus.

What you will learn

• Learn demographic methods and theory, including population projections; dynamics of fertility, mortality and migration; data science and analytics; 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 learn how to conduct demographic research in situations where data are lacking. Our Population Studies Group has expertise pioneering demographic methods where data are scarce or unreliable in a wide variety of settings.

You’ll be taught by demographers, social scientists, and reproductive health specialists and you will be welcomed into a dynamic research group who are committed to demography training. Hear about their specialist research on everything from improving mortality data collection in pandemics, to evolutionary and anthropological demography, to the relationship between violence and fertility, as well as from a range of external speakers working in the population field.

With a choice of modules, you’ll be able to shape your study to suit your interests. Perhaps you’ll find a passion for population projections under different scenarios. Or maybe you’ll be interested in critically appraising population policies or studying how population interacts with climate change. 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, sexual and reproductive health 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 & 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.

Mode of Delivery

Lectures and practicals for this online programme will be delivered during the UK timezone, on weekdays, usually between 09.00-17.00.

The programme will be delivered wholly online, with no in-person attendance. There will be a mix of live and interactive activities (synchronous learning) as well as recorded or self-directed study (asynchronous learning). Examples of synchronous learning are live online lectures, group discussions and seminars. Asynchronous learning includes pre-recorded lectures, independent reading and activities.

Duration

The programme is 12 months full-time or 24 months part-time; it is also available for split-study over two years.

Full-time (12 months): Full-time students are expected to study approximately 40 hours per week including about 12-20 hours of synchronous learning per week (3-5 hours in any one day) during the teaching term, depending on the modules chosen. Live synchronous lectures and class sessions usually take place Monday-Friday between 9:00-17:00 UK time. Students are also required to attend all live sessions and group work and undertake self-led study each week.

Part-time (24 months): Students can study part-time by studying for two or three days per week during the teaching term, and spreading all the modules required to complete a master’s programme over two years. There are no evening or weekend classes. Depending on module selection, students may be required to attend for different days in each term. Part-time students are expected to study approximately 20 hours per week including about 6-10 hours of synchronous learning per week (3-5 hours each study day) during the teaching term, depending on the selected modules.

Split study (24 months): Students taking the programme by split-study undertake full-time study for a minimum of one term in Year 1, before then breaking for 12 months and returning to undertake the remainder of the programme in Year 2, resuming on a full-time basis. The proposed date for the split must be agreed with the programme director. 

Ways to study explained.