MSc Public Health | Part-time

This module introduces concepts and theories within the field of public health. It:

• enhances your knowledge and understanding of population-based health issues and public health response in light of policy and practice
• enables you to examine health inequalities
• enables you to identify local, national and international health-related strategies

This module encourages you to develop your skills as a potential producer of research, as well as your ability to systematically evaluate research outcomes from a variety of sources. It:

• provides a critical knowledge base of the philosophical foundations of public health research
• enables you to develop expertise in qualitative and quantitative data analysis
• prepares you to carry out empirical and literature-based research

The dissertation module offers you an opportunity to explore in-depth an area of personal or professional interest that relates to your programme of study. In doing this, you will expand your research skills and apply what you have learned in the earlier modules to your research project. It enables to:

• develop your skills necessary to plan and execute a research project that is relevant to your area of study
• effectively communicate research outcomes to an appropriate audience

You can choose your own topic and methodology, though this should be relevant to public health and ideally to your route specialism. You can choose to write up as a full dissertation or as a journal style article (which comes with a viva).

This module encourages you to develop knowledge and competence in the area of health improvement. It aims to provide the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills to effectively plan, implement and evaluate health improvement projects and programmes to improve the health and well-being of populations.

Epidemiology, Health Intelligence and Health Protection are core public health disciplines that share some key approaches and methods. Epidemiological and health surveillance methods provide essential data which are used to determine suitable health protection strategies. This module will explore these three key areas and the relationships between them and apply them to a number of key issues from a global context.

This module examines public health risk in the context of globalisation. It explores the key processes of globalisation and how they impact the health of populations and their environments. Public health risks are identified and their global level strategic responses are evaluated.

This module critically examines a range of key issues relating to violence and health from international, national and local perspectives. It demonstrates the need for an interdisciplinary public health approach when addressing the causes of violence, building prevention control strategies, and promoting safety. It enables you to understand and develop strategies to control violence.

This module enhances your knowledge and understanding of addiction as a public health issue and also its risk factors. It assesses different models of addiction e.g. drug addiction, alcohol addiction, gambling etc as well as its associations and mediators/moderators.

This module enhances your knowledge and understanding of addictions policy objectives, enabling you to critically assess the effectiveness of the interventions. It enables you to:

• identify core addiction policies and strategies from a UK and international perspective and assess how these are developed and put into operation
• examine how personal and structural forces impact on addiction and assess if these are related to policy objectives
• evaluate policies and interventions designed to improve addiction outcomes

This module aims to enable you to work practically and develop public health knowledge and skills pertinent to practical settings.

This module aims to develop your knowledge of public health topic that is suited to your own needs but which fulfills the learning outcomes for the module, it focuses on literature review rather than an empirical study related to the field. It provides you with an opportunity to develop your own learning and knowledge base in a public health topic of your own choice.

You will work with your tutor to select and agree an area of public health to investigate. The topic will need to be different and not linked to any other module you are taking, but must sit within the broad public health discipline/subject area. In the past, topics have addressed issues such as: Working in partnership to improve mental health; Smoke Free initiatives; and reviewing research governance procedures.

You will present a substantial plan of work to be agreed by the module leader, and embark on a review of the literature. The research and library support officer will be available to help guide you if needed, and it may be appropriate to liaise with tutors outside of the module who have relevant specialist knowledge pertaining to your area of interest. Where relevant students can seek support outside of PHI if the topic is related to a nursing or midwifery concern in public health for example.