This course is designed for those interested in public health programmes in low- or middle-income countries, with a focus on developing the skills needed to improve their design and implementation. Students choose from around seven to eight scenarios, each addressing a different public health challenge in a specific setting, based on staff expertise and availability.

Through lectures, guided workshops and panel discussions, the course covers key aspects of programme planning and effective intervention design, with an emphasis on practical, real-world skills. Students work in groups to evaluate evidence and design a public health programme for a defined problem and context, supported by an LSHTM facilitator and an in country expert.

Intended learning outcomes

By the end of this module, students should be able to:

1. Describe and apply measures of disease frequency (e.g. incidence and prevalence), measures of effect (e.g. relative and absolute risk), and measures of disease impact (e.g. population attributable fraction)

2. Explain the principles, strengths and limitations underlying the following study designs: ecologic, cross-sectional, cohort, case-control and intervention/randomised controlled trials

3. Identify problems interpreting epidemiologic data: chance, bias, and confounding

4. Be aware of criteria for assessing causality

5. Assess advantages and disadvantages of different preventive strategies, including screening.

6. Describe how to build an effective monitoring and evaluation system into a public health programme.

7. Demonstrate skills related to the costing and budgeting of programme activities.

8. Develop critical reflections on the ways of working in groups, and how public health programmes in low- or middle-income countries are affected by the role of development assistance and aid funding

Mode of delivery

This module is delivered predominantly face-to-face. Teaching methods will include lectures, guided workshops, group work and panel discussions. In most instances, these will be delivered face-to-face, but for the panel discussions,this will be in a hybrid format (where staff or external lecturers are based overseas).

Assessment

Formative assessment may be used to monitor progress, including written and verbal feedback on the project proposal in Week 3 from Module Organisers and Facilitators. Only summative assessments contribute to the overall award GPA.

Assessment is based on:

• The group final proposal document (70%)
• An individual reflection on personal and peer contributions (10%)
• An individual MCQ exam (20%)

Credits

• CATS: 15
• ECTS: 7.5

Module specification

For full information regarding this module please see the module specification.

Please note: information based on the 2024-25 module specification subject to change for 2025-26 entry.