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MSc Public Health for Eye Care (pre-course info)

Welcome Week

Welcome Week timetable

Overview of the MSc

The aim of the MSc is to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to:

(i) develop a public health oriented approach to eye care services and the control of blindness to work towards Universal Health Coverage: Eye Health for All;

(ii) acquire and apply skills in epidemiological and operational research, critical analysis of strategies for the control of major blinding eye diseases, programme planning, management and evaluation;

(iii) facilitate personal development, so enabling individuals to contribute more fully to their countries’ and societies’ eye health;

(iv) engage with local, national and international networks of health professionals and systems, for the prevention of blindness worldwide.

In each term you will have some compulsory units that will be specific to eye health. However, you will also have a range of other core modules and optional study units to enhance your skills and broaden your knowledge in related areas such as epidemiology and health economics or to develop skills in literature review and proposal development.

All students will be expected to do a project and clear guidelines for this will be provided during the programme. You may already have ideas for this, and where relevant we recommend that you bring along any data that you might use for planning your research project, such as local blindness survey output, or published national eye care or health care plans.

We highly recommend prior to starting the MSc that you make yourself familiar with using Microsoft Word and Excel computer programmes.

Please also have a look at the website of the International Centre for Eye Health for some insight on the work of past students and their careers after the MSc.

Reading list

The priority in pre-course reading will be to arrive with as much understanding as possible of your local eye health and blindness prevention context, as well as the regional and global situations.

To help this, we recommend you try to access any national blindness prevention strategy documents from the country in which you work. If there have been national blindness surveys in your country, then please also familiarise yourself with these.

Everyone, please read the article, “Global causes of blindness and distance vision impairment 1990–2020: a systematic review and meta-analysis” by SR Flaxman et al published in the Lancet, 2017.

We also recommend you read the World Report on Vision from the WHO.

Finally, the Journal of Community Eye Health is available online or as an app that can be downloaded from Google Play or the Apple App store. We recommend that you read the centenary issue which provides a rich overview of the main issues in global eye health.

For those who want to do more in depth preparation, you could work through the online learning material ICEH have produced:

Global Blindness: Planning and Managing Eye Care Services

Each module will come with its own set of reading – but if you can come familiar with these resources it will give you the best possible start.

Information for new split-study students

As a split-study student you will enrol with all full-time students at the start of the academic. There are different modalities of split-studies and you should have discussed your timetable for the next two years with the Programme Director before arrival.

Information for continuing split-study students

As a continuing part-time student you will be expected to return to complete the MSc in Term 3 and complete your research field work and dissertation.

Page last updated September 2023