Why you should study this course
Public health is focused on preventing health problems to help create healthy and happy societies. It is the science and art of detecting and preventing disease, enhancing people’s quality of life, and promoting physical, mental, and environmental health amongst populations so people can live healthier, for longer.
Our Public Health BSc (Hons) offers the opportunity to develop knowledge around differing health needs, influences on health, and how to prevent ill health and promote health and wellbeing. Public health principles and guiding values are based around the responsibility to protect and improve health of all people, and this course has a particular emphasis in reducing inequalities in health.
The curriculum, which is mapped to the UK Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework, aims to equip you with the knowledge and skills across the three pillars of public health – prevention, protection, promotion – to enable you the chance to apply appropriate strategies into practice. The concepts, theories and methods applied to real life situations are designed to prepare you, upon graduation, for a range of varied roles within the field of public health.
You will be taught using a mixture of lectures and small-group seminars, ‘hands-on’ skills workshops, student-led discussions and interactive simulation. These interactive, creative and hands-on learning sessions aim to support you to explore important health issues theoretically as well as practically. You will also have inter-professional learning opportunities allowing students from a diverse range of health-related courses the opportunity to share, learn and work together.
Through the teaching of the prevention pillar, and upon successful completion of this course, you will gain an understanding of the causes and consequences of diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. You will explore how to tackle the challenges facing disease prevention efforts. Through the protection pillar, you will study communicable diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, and HIV; their surveillance, and the reaction to and control of communicable disease outbreaks. Through the promotion pillar, the theories and tools used to promote health and wellbeing are examined, drawing on behavioural psychology and sociology, as well as actual health promotion policies in operation.
Within the study of all three pillars of public health there is an emphasis on helping you have the opportunity to develop your understanding and application to practice, of the scientific approaches to disease prevention, contributing to improved healthcare quality and delivery, empowering individuals to make sound health decisions, and influencing policy in public health.
You may have opportunities to attend out-of-classroom field trips related to aspects of public health, and you will also have access to a range of international experience opportunities.
This course has been designed following extensive consultation with healthcare organisations and professionals from various public health disciplines to ensure it reflects the latest thinking in public health and to help prepare you for your career options in the field upon graduation.
Upon successful completion of this course, you will have developed an understanding of health disparities and health inequalities at local, national and international levels. You will also have the knowledge to be able to improve health outcomes through the effective planning, execution and evaluation of health interventions to change behaviour.
What you'll study
Year one
In year 1 you are introduced to the basic concepts, principles and methods on which public health practice is grounded. Upon successful completion, your personal and professional skills will be developed to enable you to recognise, describe and appreciate the principles, concepts and approaches to public health practice (prevention, promotion and protection) to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities.
Modules
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Foundations of Public Health - 20 credits
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21st Century Communication in Public Health - 20 credits
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Personal and Professional Development Skills - 10 credits
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Introduction to Research Methods - 20 credits
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Health Systems - 20 credits
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Foundations for Health Interventions and Evaluation - 20 credits
Year two
In year 2 there is a focus on helping you with the chance to create and build on your skills to apply, appraise and evaluate public health concepts, principles and methods for improving population health. Upon successful completion of the course, you will be able to evaluate population health needs, understand and appraise relationships between health policy and wider systems, as well as using creative approaches in developing and planning public health activities.
Modules
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Introduction to Epidemiology - 20 credits
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Understanding and Using Health Research - 20 credits
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Health Protection - 20 credits
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Health Promotion - 20 credits
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Public Health Policy and Management - 20 credits
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Employability in Public Health - 10 credits
Final year
The final year of the course aims to concentrate on activities that are concerned with preparing you to become a critical thinker in order to enable you to critique, interpret and manipulate public health activities, approaches and evidence in a variety of contexts at local, national and international levels. It is designed to help prepare you for your career options in Public Health practice upon graduation, which may involve options in senior positions, by encouraging you to apply leadership and management principles to activities for improving health outcomes and reducing health inequalities.
Modules
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Leadership and Management in Public Health - 20 credits
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Contemporary Issues in Public Health - 20 credits
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Globalisation and Sustainable Health Financing - 20 credits
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Implementing Health Service Interventions and Evaluations - 20 credits
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Health Informatics - 10 credits
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Dissertation - 20 credits
