Most professions in the health sciences need to read and interpret statistics relating to individual health status, interpret health risks in communities, and engage in the evaluation of interventions, or impact of health policies or programs. Many public health practitioners are actively involved in surveillance, quantitative research and/or evaluation. This unit provides students with the fundamental skills they need to analyse and interpret results from quantitative data collections. Content includes descriptive statistics, undertaking comparisons between groups, quantifying associations between variables, and statistical power. The unit is highly applied with the main focus being on interpretation and appraisal of statistical results and conducting analyses using statistical software.
Recommended textbook:
Armitage P, Berry G, Matthews JNS. Statistical Methods in Medical Research (4th edition). Wiley-Blackwell, London.

At the end of the course the students will be able to This topic is a foundational topic for anyone interested in public health. The topic will look at core values and principles in current public health including equity, empowerment. It will introduce students to primary health care and the history of the development of public health. This topic will explore the elements and actions of a population health approach, including conceptualizing the determinants of health, synthesizing knowledge about major social determinants, and applying knowledge to improve population health and reduce health disparities. The topic will also introduce the concept of empowerment and processes of change linked to it especially considering the broad implications for change agent roles in public health.
Recommended textbook: Fran Baum. The New Public Health. 4th Edition, Oxford University Press.

This topic introduces students to the historical development, structure, operation, and current and future directions of the major components of the health care delivery and public health systems. It examines the ways in which health care services are organized and delivered, the influences that impact health care public policy decisions, factors that determine priorities in financing health care services and the relationship of health care costs to measurable benefits. The course enables students to assess the role of organized efforts to influence health policy formulation, and the contributions of medical technology, research findings, and societal values to the evolving health care delivery system.
Recommended textbook:
James A. Johnson. Comparative Health Systems: A Global Perspective. Jones & Bartlett Learning; 2nd edition