Global Public Health

Overview

You will explore the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and public health challenges contributing towards global inequalities. The central aspects of the course include creating an environment for interdisciplinary and interprofessional learning through embedding research and scholarship within the course, enhancing engagement with public health and wider health industry stakeholders and integrating the development of employability skills throughout. 

The course will use traditional face-to-face learning, combined with an innovative learning approach which will support you within a flexible learning environment.

All about the course

The MSc Global Public Health course from Canterbury Christ Church University aims to critically engage you with the theories, principles and practices that contribute to the improvements in global public health. 

The course will engage with current global health challenges and provide insights into innovative responses to meet these challenges, within the context of a complex global political, cultural, geographical and economic environment to support you to develop competencies to work in global public health and health service delivery within NHS, local government, private and charity organisations, international development sector, academia and wider health and wellbeing economy. 

The curriculum for this course is rooted in evidence-based research skills and knowledge which will prepare you to become an independent public health professional by providing opportunities to engage in research and scholarship within and beyond the school.

The content of the course is informed by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the future requirements of the United Kingdom workforce, as outlined in the Department of Health’s draft Workforce Strategy for the Health, and Care Workforce and the Review of the Public Health Workforce. The World Health Organisation has grouped these health-related indicators into the following seven thematic areas:

• reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health
• infectious diseases
• noncommunicable diseases and mental health
• injuries and violence
• universal health coverage and health systems
• environmental risks
• health risks and disease outbreaks.

Your future career

The course will develop a more strategic understanding and is a useful qualification for those who are interested in managerial or senior roles that are concerned with health and wellbeing in health care, social care, education, business or the voluntary sector.

Although the course will not lead to a professional registration, it would support you to develop relevant competencies required by a healthy public health workforce, as set out in the Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework (PHSKF, 2016), that would be required to gain professional registration with the UK Public Health Registration (UKPHR) and the Faculty of Public Health (FPH).

Typical areas of employment that you can enter after completing this course are:

• international development: education programmes, tackling poverty, human rights
• global public health: supporting sustainable development goals, tackling global health inequalities
• charity work and non-governmental organisations
• commissioning public health services
• public health intelligence and surveillance
• improving healthy lifestyles (e.g. physical activity, sexual health, smoking cessation, drugs and alcohol, weight management) Housing and environmental health
• global public health policy and research
• health services improvement and administration
• criminal justice system work in prisons and probation
• undertake further study to pursue career in academia or research.