Public Health Management

Overview

Course Details

This Public Health Management MSc course offered by the University of Southampton will give you the skills for a management career that makes a difference. Graduates of this master's have gone on to work for the government and public bodies both in the UK and abroad. These include Public Health England, local government and ministries of health.

An in-depth understanding of public health underpins this course. You’ll learn to develop and evaluate public health programmes and conduct epidemiological studies. The specialist management areas you’ll explore within a health context include:

• systems thinking to tackle complex problems
• making decisions to manage risk and uncertainty
• cost-effectiveness of programmes

Through your dissertation, you can personalise this course to your interests. In previous years students have worked on projects related to health care systems, such as reducing the burden of treatment for people with long term conditions and multiple morbidity and social care needs. 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 both Public Health, Health Economics and Management.

We also offer 4 other pathways on our Public Health Master's. If you decide that you’d like to change to a different public health specialism within the first 2 weeks of the semester you’ll be able to change your degree.

Your other Public Health MSc pathway options are:

• Public Health - Discover our Public Health master's degree at the University of Southampton. Boost your career skills in global disease prevention & management.
• 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 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 course is also available 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

There are a wide variety of master's in public health careers you can get from this course. Your exact role will depend on the type of organisation you work for. You may be managing and supporting teams, providing public health expertise and advice, or commissioning services and managing public health budgets.

Previous graduates have gone on to work for the Medical Research Council, Public Health England, universities, local government, ministries of health and charities such as Action Against Hunger.

This degree is very applied. Learning reflects real-world multi-disciplinary teams and we assess you through practical tasks. This will prepare you well for employment across the sector.

Possible job roles include:

• public health programme manager
• commissioner
• health improvement principal

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