Master of Public Health (MPH)

The Master of Public Health (MPH) degree is internationally respected for its multidisciplinary focus and commitment to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Health for All principles.

It is an essential programme if you are working in any area of public health, governmental organisations; health services management; policy and planning; housing; transport; or for community groups and NGOs. Our students are medics, doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists, environmental health officers and professionals from various sectors of health services.

The MPH runs from September to September, and all students start in September. Attendance at lectures is compulsory. Most lectures are held during Terms 1 and 2. Each term is normally 12 weeks long. Full-time students typically attend lectures for a total of two days per week and part-time students typically attend lectures for a total of one day per week. A student’s actual days of attendance will depend on which modules they are studying. 

In public health, the focus is on populations and communities rather than individual patients. There are a number of career options in research, public or government services or voluntary organisations and non-governmental organisations. Starting from a common core, students may develop into roles ranging from public health analysts, health services researchers, communicable disease control consultants, environmental epidemiologists, health policy advisors or directors of public health.

Master of Public Health graduates are able to:

• Design, analyse, interpret and evaluate epidemiological and biomedical research.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the essential principles of modern biostatistical methods.
• Apply current research methods in key areas of chronic disease epidemiology, infectious disease epidemiology, and environmental exposure.
• Demonstrate skills in health information analysis, report writing and communication.
• Demonstrate an understanding of health systems, policy and financing and key global health issues.
• Demonstrate an understanding of, and skills in, needs assessment, health equity audit, health impact assessment, health care evaluation, changing health behaviour, health intervention planning and health economics.

International students are encouraged to apply to undertake the MSc in Public Health (MPH)programme. This may include professionals working, for example, in health promotion, policy development and evaluation, in government or non-governmental organisations and other health-related agencies. International students should note that the working language for the programme is English. This is a linguistically demanding programme and students whose first language is not English are required to have passed the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) before commencing the programme. The following standard is required:

• an overall score of at least 7.0
• a score of at least 6.5 on each of the four elements of IELTS
• the IELTS reading and writing tests are taken by candidates must be the Academic Reading and Academic Writing tests

Where English is the first language, overseas students are usually expected to be able to demonstrate their English language proficiency equivalent to that of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) requirements and we therefore strongly recommend that all overseas applicants take the IELTS examination.

Coming soon

Job titles of recent MPH graduates include Public Health Specialist; Head of Public Health Intelligence; Health Partnership Programme Manager; Health Promotion Campaign Manager; Epidemiologist; Health Data Analyst; Project Coordinator; Public Health Advisor; Health Protection Specialist; Public Health Screening Coordinator; Vascular Prevention Programme Coordinator; Health Improvement Practitioner; Public Health Specialist: Healthy Living; and Lecturer in Public Health.