Public Health

Overview

Course Details

This Public Health MSc course offered by the University of Southampton will give you the skills for a career that makes a difference. Graduates have gone onto to public health careers for government and public bodies in the UK and abroad, including the Medical Research Council, Public Health England, local government, ministries of health, universities and charities.

Through this course you’ll learn how to:

• develop, plan and evaluate public health programmes
• initiate health behaviour change using social media, community engagement and advocacy
• apply quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques
• use the SPSS statistics software programme

You can personalise this course to your interests through optional modules and your dissertation. In previous years students have worked closely with real-world partners on dissertation projects, including the Ministry of Defence, Age UK and city councils.

Public health is an interdisciplinary profession, and this is reflected in your learning. Your lecturers are academics who are actively involved in research or are working in the sector. They’re experts from across the University, in Medicine, Health Geography, Demography, Social Science and Management.

We offer 5 pathways on our MSc Public Health degree. If you’re not sure which area of public health you want to specialise in this general pathway gives you the chance to explore a number of different areas, from advanced statistics to communicable disease control to food systems.

Your other Public Health MSc pathway options are:

• Public Health Global Health - Discover our Public Health Global Health master's degree at the University of Southampton. Learn the links between health, climate change, urbanisation and conflict.
• Public Health Intelligence - Discover our Public Health Intelligence master's degree at the University of Southampton. Learn how to collect and analyse public health intelligence research.
• Public Health Management - Discover our Public Health Management master's degree at the University of Southampton. Learn to apply systems thinking to global and local health issues.
• Public Health Nutrition - Discover our Public Health Nutrition master's degree at the University of Southampton. Learn to develop the skills to become a public health nutritionist.

This global health degree is available to take as an intercalation degree for undergraduate medical students. Intercalation means that you'll take a year out of your undergraduate medicine degree to gain this extra award.

Career Opportunities

This master’s of public health is very applied. Learning reflects real-world multi-disciplinary teams and assessment is by practical tasks. This will prepare you well for employment across the sector. MSc public health jobs include:

• a practitioner in public health, developing, implementing and evaluating policies and programmes
• an academic researcher
• a public health intelligence officer, looking at the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases

Possible job roles include:

• public health policy analyst
• epidemiologist
• programme manager
• field consultant
• health educator

Previous graduates have gone on to work for the Medical Research Council, Health Education England, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Portsmouth City Council, charities such as Action against Hunger and private food companies such as Waitrose.

Some graduates go on to take a PhD and some are working for themselves as independent consultants or educators.

You’ll also gain transferable skills that will improve your employability in whichever career you choose, including: 

• how to conduct research projects
• collaboration, negotiation and influencing skills
• effective communication using a range of methods