Population Health Science

Entry requirements

Applicants for this course should have achieved a UK Good II.i Honours Degree.

If your degree is not from the UK, please check International Qualifications to find the equivalent in your country.

Applicants will usually have undergraduate experience in quantitative science or a degree in a health-related area, although other relevant experience will also be considered.

We also expect clear interest in Population Health Sciences (PHS), clear commitment to a career in PHS, and a clear understanding of the contribution of the MPhil to applicants’ future career ambitions.

Applicants without the standard university requirements but with, for example, clinical degrees or appropriate and compensatory professional experience, may be considered via our non-standard admissions mechanism, if they meet all other admissions criteria. If your application should be considered via our non-standard mechanism, please select ‘no’ on the verification of qualifications question on the application form, and then provide some justification.

Mathematical skills at the level of an excellent A-level student are a minimum requirement for applicants to the Health Data Science (HDS) theme. Nevertheless, we expect that most applicants to HDS will have a mathematical training that is more advanced than A-level. Applicants to HDS who only satisfy the minimum mathematical requirement should have an undergraduate degree in a field relevant to the course (e.g. biomedical sciences). Some aptitude for and experience of computer programming is highly desirable for HDS applicants.

Months of entry

October

Course content

The MPhil in Population Health Sciences includes the academic disciplines of epidemiology, global health, health data science, infectious diseases, public health, and primary care research. In the first term, all students take five core modules in biostatistics, epidemiology, applied data analysis, public health and research skills. Students subsequently select at least six additional modules, either following a designated pathway in one of the named specialisation themes (epidemiology, global health, health data science, infectious diseases, public health, and primary care research) or following a more personalised pathway.

The course is open to postgraduates who wish to pursue a research, practice or leadership career in population health sciences.

The overall aim of the programme is to provide course participants with the necessary knowledge and skills to serve as a foundation for a career in population health sciences in an academic, practice or in other settings. Students will receive basic training in the core research methods used in the related academic disciplines of epidemiology, global health, health data science, infectious diseases, public health, and primary care research, and will then be given the opportunity to further specialise in their chosen area of interest. The course will teach students how to critique and design population health studies, and will give them the opportunity to carry out focused research under close supervision. Ultimately, we expect our postgraduates to contribute to the study and improvement of population health.

Please see the course website for further details.​

Learning Outcomes

All graduates of the programme should be able to:

Critically appraise and evaluate the design, analysis and interpretation of population health studies.

Identify and synthesise relevant published research literature.

Select, devise and develop appropriate study designs and data collection methods for population health research.

Select appropriate measures to describe and analyse the health status of populations and variations within populations.

Collect, manage and conduct appropriate analyses of data relevant to population health using contemporary research tools.

Apply relevant theories to practical settings.

Assess risks to population health at a variety of levels.

Design and evaluate the impact of interventions on population health.

Understand the functioning of organizations and regulatory frameworks relevant to work in population health science.

Appreciate the inherent uncertainty of research in population health disciplines and the challenges of working with conflicting viewpoints and complexity.

Marshall and critically evaluate evidence from a wide range of sources to help advance population health.

Identify a researchable problem and define an appropriate research question.

Develop and implement a research protocol, critically interpret findings and identify implications for research, policy and practice.

Effectively communicate population health principles and research to a range of stakeholders both verbally and in writing.

Network and collaborate effectively with diverse members of interdisciplinary teams.

Effectively use computational tools related to these learning outcomes.

Develop competitive proposals to support population health research.

Analyse and shape one’s own practice to reflect and apply these learning objectives to sustainably improve population health.

There are additional theme-specific aims and learning outcomes for students who choose to follow one of our six specialisation themes. See the course website for further details.

Fees and funding

Funding is available. Please consult the Univeristy of Cambridge Funding Search