Master in Public Health with focus Environmental Health

The goal of the Master in Public Health is to train public health professionals with a multi-faceted skill profile. Graduates of the programme will be able to draw up, implement, and assess projects related to health care and qualitative and/or quantitative research. They will also be able to manage and analyse databases and make use of health information in decision-making, and will possess the knowledge of epidemiology and methods (in terms of statistics and information technology) required to implement their decisions. They will also be able to provide training in 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, etc.

Learning sessions are grouped into research units, which cover various activities: lectures, seminars, training courses, or projects.

They can be conventional classroom activities or e-learning.

The School of Public Health is part of ULB's ‘Health Pole and is located on the Erasmus Campus, at the crossroads of a number of very diverse fields and disciplines with an extremely high level of expertise in health care (whether for research, training, or health care structures).

A key factor of life at the School is the variety of backgrounds among the students, researchers, and teachers, who are all from different origins and walks of life, providing a valuable network of contacts in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

The Master has 4 orientations:

• Biostatistics and epidemiology

This orientation gives students comprehensive knowledge and a set of methods used in statistics, epidemiology, operational research, and clinical research, including quantitative analysis methods. Students are trained to use computers applications designed for public health and medicine.

• Health services management

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

• Health systems policies and health promotion

Students can decide to specialise in health promotion or in the analysis of health systems.In this orientation they acquire knowledge, skills, and methodologies that enable them to work on health systems or carry out situational analysis, decision-making or research activities. The main topics are related to designing and planning programmes, decision-making, epidemiology, and health information systems. As future public health professionals, students are trained to assess community (locally or at a higher level) health needs, to establish an epidemiological, environmental, political, and pedagogical diagnosis. They will be able to develop and plan health programmes and projects, and to coordinate and manage preventive, curative, and rehabilitation activities in the fields of health education and promotion. They also learn how to evaluate such programmes.

• Environmental health

Courses in this orientation provide the students with the knowledge and methods (environmental studies, socio-political and legal aspects, epidemiological aspects) required to study environmental health, acquire the required skills to analyse situations, take decisions, and launch activities and research projects.