Master in Public Health

many opportunities in research (public or private organisations), health services, research units, public health institutions, health observatories; NGO's and international institutions

The aim of the Master in Public Health is to train public health professionals with a multi-faceted skills profile. After the Master, the students will be able to draw up, implement and assess health care and qualitative and/or quantitative research projects. They will also be able to manage and analyse databases and use health information when taking decisions, and will have the required knowledge of epidemiology and methods (in terms of statistics and information technology) to implement them. They will also be able to provide training in the health care management and environmental health.

Studying public health involves an interdisciplinary approach: biostatistics, law, economy, sociology, psychology, food sciences, pedagogy, hygiene, epidemiology, management, politics, communication...

The Master in Public Health is a master with a professional focus preparing the students to the public health professions, and is adapted in industrialized as developing countries.

The master is organized in 4 specialized focus. The core curriculum has 60 ECTS (including preparation to training periods, interdisciplinary seminars, training periods and master dissertation) and specialisation courses to be chosen in one of the 4 disciplinary orientations:

• Biostatistics and epidemiology

• Health services management

• Health systems policies and health promotion

• Environmental health

The Health system management proposes 3 options: health services management, nursing department management, clinical nursing sciences

The ULB Master in Public Health was the first course of its kind to be run in the French-speaking administrative region of Belgium in 2005-2006. The School of Public Health is part of the ULB's "Health Pole" and is located on the Erasmus Campus, right at the crossroads of a number of very diverse fields and disciplines with an extremely high level of health care expertise (in research, training and health care structures). A key factor of life at the School is the variety of backgrounds amongthe students, researchers and teachers who come from different origins and walks of life, providing an important network of contacts in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

The master has 4 focus:

• Biostatistics and epidemiology

This orientation provides to the students un whole set of knowledge and methods in statistics, epidemiology, operational research and clinical research, including quantitative analysis methods. Students will be trained to computers applications designed for public health and medicine.

• Health services management

In this orientation, the student will be trained to develop the required competences to manage responsibilities in health care services (hospitals, day care units, rest and care homes, rehabilitation structures). Those responsibilities could managerial or clinical ones.

• Health systems policies and health promotion

The students choose options in health promotion or in analysis of health systems. They will acquire in this orientation knowledges, skills and methodologies to work on health systems, situational analysis, decision making or research activities. The main topics are related to program conception and planning, decision making, epidemiology, health information systems. The future public health professional will be trained to assess community (locally or at a higher level) health needs, to make an epidemiological, environmental, political and pedagogical diagnosis. They will be able to conceive and plan health programs and projects, to coordinate and manage preventive, curative and rehabilitation activities in health education and health promotion. They will learn how to evaluate them.

• Environmental health

In this orientation, lectures are aimed to give to the students a set of knowledge and methods (environmental studies, socio-political and legal aspects, epidemiological ones) to study environmental health, as to acquire the required skills to analyse situations, to take decisions and to launch activities and research projects.