MA/MS in Public health

Objective(s) of a study programme: The aim of the Public Health Master study programme is to train competent public health specialists, public health leaders, who have the skills of strategic, analytical and systemic thinking and evaluation, who demonstrate the abilities to develop health policy and manage effectively; also, the ones who generate new theories and ideas, are able to perform practical and scientific research activities to improve the population’s health and welfare, to reduce health inequalities, to develop ethical and efficient health policy. While implementing the Public Health study programme it is aimed to ensure that the graduates, who will work in public health institutions, would have scientific insight and the need to improve, would have strong fundamental knowledge of health and social sciences and would be able professionally apply them in practice, would know health monitoring and evaluation theory and practice and would be able to apply it within modern health promotion and disease prevention programmes, could analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of new intervention methods, to spread best practices and have necessary skills for the work with population risk and vulnerable groups within a community. Learning outcomes: Learning outcomes: The ability to analyse and synthesise the information, and make reasonable decisions. The knowledge and ability to apply informational and communicational technologies, the ability to communicate and organise the dissemination of information. The ability to organise work within an interdisciplinary team, to share and exchange the information and suggest solutions to problems, to make general decisions. The knowledge of the most important informational sources, the ability to systemise the information collected from various sources. The knowledge of the principles of project planning and management. The ability to evaluate the population’s health and identify public health problems. The ability to ground public health surveillance priorities, set the aims, tasks, organise data collection and its analysis, as well as interpretation and dissemination. The ability to perform evaluation on public health supervision. The ability to evaluate the impact of different environmental factors on the health of the population and its separate groups, to suggest to ways for controlling the negative effects. The ability to organise public health safety, to evaluate the public health safety interventions. The ability to develop health policy, organise its implementation and evaluation. The ability to prepare preventive programmes, organise their implementation and be able to evaluate their efficiency. The ability to organise cooperation with the health care specialists, as well as the specialists of other areas and be able to work within an interdisciplinary team, to communicate in the mother tongue, and a foreign language. The organisation, implementation and evaluation of health promotion and education. The organisation of evidence based public health practice. Activities of teaching and learning: Lectures, seminars, exercises, analysis of situations and publications, teamwork, open discussion, search for literature, independent work, professional practice Methods of assessment of learning achievements: The main form of evaluation is an examination. However, courses units may be evaluated by the pass/fail evaluation as well. Every course unit is concluded with either a written or written-oral examination or pass/fail evaluation. Student's knowledge and general performance during the exam are evaluated using grading scale from 1(very poor) to 10(excellent), or by pass or fail evaluation in the cases when pass/fail evaluation is foreseen as a final evaluation of the course unit. Study subjects (modules), practical training: Future holders of a master’s degree in public health study advanced epidemiology, information systems in public health, public health policy and public health intervention, public health ethics and law, public health management and economics, etc. Professional training is organised. The duration of training is 160 hours. During the training, students work together with highly qualified specialists. They also consolidate and improve skills such as conducting research, interpreting results, and identifying and solving problems. Specialisations: Epidemiology Access to professional activity: A Graduate may be employed in public health centres, children education institutions, occupational medicine service within enterprises, in State labour inspectorate, Food and veterinary inspectorate, Quality inspectorate, Hygiene institute, other governmental, administrative scientific and academic institutions. Access to further study: Graduators may continue studies in public health or other relevant fields doctoral level studies, also be on internship in Lithuanian or foreign universities.