Public Health (Taught)

The MPH Public Health aims to promote health, prevent disease, reduce inequalities in health, and prolong life. The population perspective of public health ensures that its practitioners are well placed to improve health wherever they are.

Our Master of Public Health degree reflects the multidisciplinary nature of public health through its flexible and innovative curriculum. Our programme enjoys strong links with the NHS, its public health practitioners and other regional and national bodies, ensuring student access to some of the country's leading authorities in public health.

WHY THIS PROGRAMME

• Taught by academics and practitioners from a wide variety of organisations and disciplines including Health Protection Scotland, environmental health, environmental protection, public health medicine, health economics and business/management.

• Multidiscplinary in focus, attracting students with undergraduate degrees in nursing, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and other health related specialisms.

• Option to graduate the MPH with or without specialisms by following certain courses. The specialisms are:

  • Epidemiology
  • Data Science
  • Health Promotion
  • Health Economics

• Central role in guiding health care practice, influencing health policy, protecting the public, and improving population health.

• Among the earliest academic fields to move towards a multidisciplinary range of programmes involving staff from a number of areas. Current disciplines represented include health promotion, health protection, sociology, psychology, epidemiology, statistics, and health economics.

• Recognised in most countries as an essential qualification for a career in public health.

PROGRAMME STRUCTURE

You will attend interactive lectures, seminars and individual tutorials and take part in project and team work.

The Master of Public Health degree may be obtained without specialism, but several specialisms are available through course and dissertation topic selection. With or without specialism, students will complete 180 credits for the successful award of the MPH degree.

Those interested in a specialism should apply for the general MPH programme and a specialism can be chosen during the induction week. See links below for detailed information on which courses students take to follow the different specialisms.

Core Courses
INTRODUCTION TO EPIDEMIOLOGY
INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICAL METHODS
PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC HEALTH
MPH RESEARCH PROJECT

Optional Courses (three courses chosen)
ADVANCED EPIDEMIOLOGY
COMMUNICABLE DISEASES
ENVIRONMENT, SUSTAINABILITY AND HEALTH
FURTHER EPIDEMIOLOGY AND STATISTICS
GLOBALISATION AND PUBLIC HEALTH
HEALTH ECONOMICS FOR HTA ONLINE
HEALTH PROMOTION: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE
ORAL HEALTH (this course is offered every second year, last offered 2019-20)
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
RESEARCH METHODS
MANAGING HEALTH CARE ORGANISATIONS
DATA SCIENCE - IDENTIFYING, COMBINING AND ANALYSING HEALTH DATA SETS
SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

If you are studying for the MPH, you will also undertake a research project of 15,000–20,000 words and your project studies here will incorporate a series of research methods lectures.

MPH with a specialism

The following MPH with a specialism degrees are available:
Public Health: Health Promotion
Public Health: Data Science
Public Health: Health Economics
Public Health: Epidemiology

For the MPH degree with a specialism, all students will take four core courses, and focus optional course selection and dissertation topics on relevant specialisms.
There is also the option to take a PgDip Public Health with Specialism or a PgCert in Public Health.