Public Health (Outbreak Control and Health Protection) Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

Overview

The Public Health (Outbreak Control and Health Protection) programme from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine covers a wide breadth of contemporary issues in international public health and explores approaches to reducing health inequities by enhancing policy and practice based upon sound, evidence-based principles. The programme gives graduates key transferable knowledge and skills in epidemiology, research methods and social science. This stream has a specialist focus on health protection and the control of disease outbreaks.

Following the taught component, students on this stream complete a research dissertation project on a topic relevant to health protection either overseas or locally, and could be desk based or field work. The programme is underpinned by LSTM’s mission to reduce the burden of sickness and mortality in disease endemic countries through the delivery of effective interventions which improve human health and are relevant to the poorest communities. 

The programme has been developed around a series of Public Health competencies derived from the international reference points and mapped to these competencies (see programme specification).

Careers

There are many career opportunities within the field of Public Health throughout the world.  Public Health and in particular outbreak control and health protection have been highlighted recently by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ebola Outbreak in West Africa, influenza and MERS.  People with public health, outbreak control and management skills are highly sought after.  

Public health careers cover a wide variety of options e.g. disease outbreak control, disease surveillance, development & delivery of communicable disease strategies, vaccinations, and the development of govt. policies & strategies. 

Graduates of this Masters can work for health ministries, health departments, national or international disease control agencies, UN Agencies, NGOs, humanitarian organisations, aid organisations, or universities.  Graduates can become global health consultants, educators, researchers, managers, health promoters/protectors, global health specialists/diplomats, advocacy workers community workers etc.