Overview

Public health is the science and art of detecting and preventing disease, enhancing people’s quality of life, and promoting physical, mental, and environmental health amongst populations so people can live healthier, for longer.

The curriculum explores strategies for tackling disease and preventing ill-health, embracing multifaceted and collective actions for health promotion, and approaches to health protection to respond to emerging challenges facing public health practitioners.

You will be taught using a mixture of lectures and small-group seminars, ‘hands-on’ skills workshops, student-led discussions and interactive simulation. This combination of teaching aims to support you to explore important health issues theoretically as well as practically. We aim to create confident, knowledgeable Public Health graduates who are ready to make meaningful change in population health locally, nationally and internationally.

Upon successful completion of this course you will have developed an understanding of health disparities and health inequalities at local, national and international levels have the knowledge to improve health outcomes through the effective planning, execution and evaluation of health interventions to change behaviour.

Course information

Public Health is based on three pillars: prevention, protection and promotion. The course aims to equip you with essential skills and knowledge in each of the three pillars. Through the teaching of the prevention pillar, and upon successful completion of this course, you will gain an understanding of the causes and consequences of diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, and how to tackle the challenges facing disease prevention efforts.

Through the protection pillar, you will study communicable diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, and HIV, their surveillance, and the reaction to and control of communicable disease outbreaks. Through the promotion pillar, the theories, techniques and tools used to promote health and wellbeing are examined, drawing on behavioural psychology and sociology, as well as actual health promotion policies in operation, for example from Public Health England and the World Health Organization.

Within the study of all the three pillars of public health there is an emphasis on helping you to develop your understanding of the scientific approaches to disease prevention, contributing to improved healthcare quality and delivery, empowering individuals to make sound health decisions, and influencing policy in public health.

You will have opportunities to attend out-of-classroom field trips related to aspects of public health, and you will also have access to a range of international experience opportunities (subject to availability and additional fees may apply).
This course has been designed following extensive consultation with health care organizations and professionals from various public health disciplines to ensure it reflects the latest thinking in public health and to prepare you for employment in the field.