Master of Public Health - MPH

This is one of the two ‘applied Public Health’ modules in the programme. It is delivered by specialist public health tutors. These modules draw from the various source disciplines (especially the social and physical sciences) and apply them to considering public health practice. As the programme is highly practice-led, knowledge-applied, the relevance of links between personal and professional development are made in this module. Additionally, as this is one of the introductory modules for the programme, and links are made with the programme induction activities. A non- graded, ‘dry run’ assignment is a valuable early feature of the module.

This is the second of the two ‘applied Public Health’ modules in the programme, delivered by specialist public health tutors. These modules draw from the various source disciplines (especially the social and physical sciences) and apply them to considering public health practice.

This module will build on the knowledge and understanding from the Public Health Foundations module. The aim will be to explore three key themes, their application in practice and critically appraise their effectiveness. This aim will be to explore a Public Health journey through a range of approaches from protecting the public’s health to working with and alongside communities. This can be viewed either historically, conceptually or as defined by the priorities in Public Health practice.

Social, economic, environmental and political processes impact upon health and public health practices across the globe. In this module, you will explore many of these major challenges for global health and their implications for public health practice. This is in line with the programme philosophy that identifies the dynamic and complex nature of the factors that influence health and public health work. The ethos of the course sees public health work as being most effective when it acknowledges the complexity of the processes which impact upon health, and also that improving the health of populations will require working towards increased global equality. Within the module we will examine global health inequalities and the social determinants of health, and critically explore how they lead to an unequal and inequitable distribution of poor health both within countries and between countries.

In order to work effectively within public health you are required to develop the knowledge and skills provided by the study of epidemiology, including how contemporary public health data locally, nationally and internationally are constructed, identified, measured and utilised in public health programmes and interventions. This module seeks in particular to enable students to focus on gaining understanding of distribution of disease and various statistical and evaluation techniques can be applied to health data to help address some of the pressing contemporary public health issues such as double burden of communicable and non-communicable disease, migration, ageing, health and wealth inequalities, globalisation and the sustainability of resources in Low and middle income countries, developed nations and countries of economic transition. This module also provides an introduction to economic evaluation, health impact assessment, statistical data analysis and health needs assessment.

This module explicitly addresses students’ personal and/or professional development with a view to enhancing competence for service improvement in a rapidly changing health and healthcare environment. Through a flexible provision, students are inspired to reflect critically upon their individual learning needs as well as their organisations’ practices, to appraise and apply concepts from the literature on leadership, to issues of relevance for their role, organisation and overall programme of study.

This module specifically addresses the broader programme aims related to “pursuing excellence” and “practice-led, knowledge applied” through a flexible provision that encourages students to develop their research ideas, enabling those on various Health MSc programmes to satisfy their individual learning needs, whilst contributing to their area of study.

This triple module forms the final bridge between the award of a Postgraduate Diploma and a Health Masters related to a named award. It provides the student with the opportunity to complete a piece of work around a chosen topic in order to demonstrate competence in the planning, execution, analysis and evaluation of a Research Project, a Systematic Review or Project Management. It involves 600 hours of study. The focus is on facilitating the student's independent, critical study in their academic discipline or area of professional practice. It will also serve those who wish to embark on Doctoral studies in the future.