Core Course in Public Health

Master Programmes

Core Course in Public Health

The Core Course in Public Health is a three month course that prepares health managers to use a public health approach to address health issues in their country, taking into account epidemiology, health system aspects and broader social determinants of health. The course will prepare you to solve complex public health problems systematically. The course can be taken as a stand-alone course or as part of the (part-time) Master of Science in Public Health.

Programme Structure

The course consists of three parts:

Epidemiology and Statistics

Social Determinants of Health

Health Systems and Policy Making

Epidemiology is the discipline concerned with describing how disease and ill-health is distributed in populations – in person, place and time – and also tries to answer the question as to why this distribution occurs and how interventions may influence this distribution. Statistics deals with collecting, summarizing, presenting and interpreting data, and using them to develop and test hypotheses. Outbreak investigation is discussed and practiced during this module.

The factors that have an important influence on health are known as determinants of health. Most of these determinants lie outside the direct influence of the health system, such as gender, education, culture, employment and environment. Understanding these factors is important to effectively design and manage interventions in the public health sector. It is also essential in mitigating the effects of global threats like pandemics.

You will look into the health needs of people, the consequent demand for services and the organisation of health service delivery. What are the factors that influence utilisation of health services and peoples’ health (care) seeking behaviour, especially by the poor and other disadvantaged groups? How do health systems remain functioning in unexpected situations like pandemics? This module discusses health systems: their boundaries, actors, functions and goals.

Practical Information

Course dates 19-09-2022 until 09-12-2022

Duration 3 months EC 17 Location KIT Amsterdam Language English Fee 2022 €6,170