The University of Edinburgh – College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine

Global Health and Infectious Diseases (Online Learning) MSc, PgDip (ICL), PgCert (ICL), PgCert, PgDip, PgProfDev

On successful completion of the Global Health and Infectious Diseases MSc, a student will be able to:

• Demonstrate extensive detailed critical knowledge in global health and infectious diseases informed by evidence-based learning.
• Apply knowledge, skills, understanding and research in a wide and often unpredictable variety of global health contexts.
• Develop and evaluate original and creative solutions to problems and issues faced in response to the infectious disease challenges in global health.
• Communicate, using appropriate methods, to a range of audiences with different levels of knowledge/expertise.
• Work in peer relationships to critically reflect on relevant experiences and build on and address these within a scientific context.

This is a professional postgraduate qualification for biomedical, medical, public health, and veterinary personnel who want to develop their scientific knowledge of the spread and management of infectious diseases.

This programme has been designed to help you fulfil leadership roles in international and national organisations that manage health and disease issues. Several students have also raised their academic profiles through the publication and dissemination of their final-year research.

You will develop an extensive knowledge of global health and infectious diseases informed by scientific research, and learn to apply this knowledge in a wide, and often unpredictable variety of global health contexts. Throughout the programme, you will learn to develop and evaluate creative solutions to better manage your response to the infectious disease challenges in global health. In addition to having more confidence in their role, and boosting career prospects, many of our graduates find that these skills have significantly enhanced their ability to communicate and influence public policy and decision-makers.

When speaking about their experiences on the Global Health and Infectious Disease programme, students spoke about the different ways this has aided in their career journey.

The programme normally takes three years (when studied part-time), beginning with a series of courses and followed by an individual project or dissertation.

Year 1 (certificate)

You will take courses that include:

• Global Health: Fundamentals
• Understanding Infectious Diseases

You will choose one from the following two options:

• a single course in Applied Epidemiology and Public Health
• a course each in Global Citizenship and Globalisation and Health

Year 2 (Diploma)

You will choose sixty credits from a range that may include:

• Global citizenship
• Project managing development aid
• Transdisciplinary policy approaches for addressing the public health and development challenges of the 21st century
• The Nexus of Food Security and Global Health
• Neglected tropical diseases
• Emerging infectious diseases
• Travel medicine and infectious diseases
• Globalisation and health
• Public health systems in high, low and middle-income countries
• The communication of disease control
• Technological advances in diagnostics
• Water and Sanitation
• Sexually transmitted infections
• Newborn and child health
• Zoonotic diseases in a global setting
• Global health: mortality
• Zoonotic disease
• Introduction to GIS and spatial data analysis
• An introduction to vaccinology
• Reproductive and maternal health

Year 3 (MSc)

You will conduct a written reflective element of 10,000-15,000 words.

Intermittent Learning (ICL)

The programme is also available for intermittent learners, this differs from the part-time structure as students have up to 6 years to complete their MSc. Further, there is no assumption of sequential study, students inform the programme teams of the courses they wish to study, and enrolment is made following this instruction. Invoices are generated with each course enrolment.

Please note, that while this study pattern does introduce more flexibility, courses are available based on the academic timetable – the timetable and assessment deadline are fixed. The compulsory elements of our exit awards must be met, although the order in which these courses are taken is no longer fixed.

Postgraduate Professional Development (PPD)

Postgraduate Professional Development (PPD) is aimed at working professionals who want to advance their knowledge through a postgraduate-level course(s), without the time or financial commitment of a full Master's, Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate.

You may take a maximum of 50 credits worth of courses over two years through our PPD scheme. These lead to a University of Edinburgh postgraduate award of academic credit.

Alternatively, after one year of taking courses, you can choose to transfer your credits and continue to study towards a higher award on a Master's, Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate programme.

Although PPD courses have various start dates throughout the year you may only start a Master's, Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate programme in September. Any time spent studying PPD will be deducted from the amount of time you will have left to complete a Master's, Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate programme.