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Centre for Primary Care and Public HealthMSc Global Public Health and PolicyMSc International Primary Health CareMSc Health Systems and Global PolicyMSc Global Health, Law and Governance

2013-14

International health MSc programmes

Primary Care and Public HealthBased in Whitechapel in the heart of east London, yetalso close to the capital’s financial centre, the Centrefor Primary Care and Public Health brings togethersome of the UK’s leading researchers in public policyand community-based health sciences who share acommitment to reducing health inequalities andpromoting universal health care in and beyond the UK.The Centre is responsible for leading global healthteaching in Barts and The London School of Medicineand Dentistry, the first UK medical school to includeglobal health in the undergraduate medical curriculum.

With strong links to NHS, local authorities, andother organisations in the east London, andwith a programme of international researchwith which students can engage, theCentre combines the local and the global ina stimulating and challenging research andteaching environment.

Aims and objectivesHigh-quality primary health care and public healthsystems are a cornerstone of an efficient, effective,and equitable health system. Many countries areseeking to shift from a hospital-led health caresystem to one characterised by population focusand a strong primary care sector. The primaryhealth care model provides the internationallyestablished norm for attaining the World HealthOrganization’s commitment to ‘health for all’. Thisvision for developing public health and primarycare is widely held but depends critically oncapacity building to produce research leaders,educators, and policy-makers. High qualityeducation and training in primary care and publichealth is key to assuring the health of a populationin any country.

Underpinned by a commitment to principles ofsocial justice and fairness, these four MScprogrammes will provide students with anunderstanding of the significance of the currentglobal challenges for health care and public healthand will offer a multidisciplinary focus on globalpublic health and primary care in a time ofincreasing health inequalities.

Outline descriptionof the programmesThe programmes are run by anexperienced team, assembled byQueen Mary for this initiative, whohave previously established andrun successful and highlyprestigious programmes bothonline and on campus at otheruniversities. The interdisciplinary programmes will be taught by QueenMary academics who are leaders in their field – in publichealth sciences, law, sociology, geography, migrationstudies, economics, management, social policy and clinical medicine – and influential in policydevelopments in the UK and internationally. They havecome together to offer a multidisciplinary focus on globalpublic health and primary care in a time of widening healthinequalities.

Through the knowledge and analytic skills they havegained, students can address the challenges facing publichealth and primary care across a range of contexts. Theirability to plan and develop services and advocate for themwill be greatly enhanced, and their effectiveness indelivering health care and public services will beincreased. Strong emphasis is placed on researchmethods and analytic techniques for practical applicationor further research, and research methods are integratedinto many modules. Students will have a uniqueopportunity to engage with current research programmes,the approaches and findings of which will inform theteaching programme.

The programmes are designed to be accessible tostudents from diverse professional and disciplinarybackgrounds, including GPs, hospital doctors andparamedical staff, primary care workers, public healthpractitioners, policy makers, lawyers, researchers, andNGO staff, and graduates in social science, science, law,medicine, nursing, and other related disciplines. Studentsseeking career change or enhancement will be wellequipped for policy positions and for public health andclinical practice in the field and in academia, in the UK andabroad. GPs and other practising health care workers willsee their ability to plan and develop services and advocatefor them greatly enhanced, and their effectiveness indelivering health care increased.

The programmes

Health Systems and Global PolicyThis programme considers how the principles andpractice of effective and fair public health care can informhealth policy and health care systems in national and localsettings. An important focus of the programme will be thetheoretical and practical principles of solidarity in healthcare systems. The programme analyses the principles ofhealth systems, and makes global linkages to social,political, economic, and cultural issues in individualcountries and themes. Students will gain an understandingof competition and trade law and regulation and itsapplication to public health care. This programme is ofparticular interest to medical and clinical practitioners, civilservants, public health practitioners, social and politicalscientists, lab scientists, and NGO workers.

Global Public Health and PolicyThis programme builds on models of social determinantsof health and international health concepts of policy-making at the extra-territorial level. Students can specialisein areas as diverse as trade in health, global burden ofdisease, evidence based policy making, pharmaceuticals,clinical trials, and ethics. The programme is of particularinterest to public health doctors and other healthpractitioners in public and primary health care, but will alsoattract policy makers and NGO workers and social andlaboratory scientists.

International Primary Health CareThis programme is modelled on an award-winning onlineMSc previously run by the same team through theUniversity of London External System. The vision is tobuild a vibrant inter-professional and interdisciplinarylearning community of primary care practitioners who willwork together under the guidance of expert tutors toexplore how the principles and practice of effectiveprimary health care may be achieved in different countries,health care systems, and local settings. There is no clinicalcomponent to this MSc, though students with a particularclinical interest (eg, diabetes, women’s health) will beencouraged to apply their knowledge to this area.

Specialist module: Social Determinants of Health:Ecological Approaches

Specialist module:Primary Health Care: Theory and Practice

Specialist modules: Globalisation and Health Care Reform

Specialist modules: Intellectual Property, Medicine and Health

*NOTE: THE MSC, GLOBAL HEALTH, LAW AND GOVERNANCE ISCURRENTLY AWAITING FORMAL APPROVAL. PLEASE CONSULTTHE WEBSITE OR CONTACT US FOR UP TO DATE INFORMATION

Global Health, Law and Governance*This programme, a collaboration between the Centre forPrimary Care and Public Health, the Department of Law,and the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, analyses thekey international organisations and legal instruments thatnational public health policies. It critically examines theWorld Health Organization, the World Trade Organization,and the World Bank, and key international conventions andprotocols. This programme will appeal to all those -medical practitioners, civil servants, lawyers, social andpolitical scientists, and NGO workers – with an involvementin health policy and health systems.

Structure of theprogrammesIn the first semester the four programmes share modules developingthe key concepts and research methods and analysis. These presentstudents with relevant methodological issues and challenges whileproviding interdisciplinary foundations. In the second semesterstudents gain a more detailed understanding of areas relevant to theirprogrammes and interests through specialist and elective modules.Each programme is differentiated by a designated specialist moduleand by the focus of the dissertation.

Dissertation

• Epidemiology and Statistics

• Health, Illness and Society

• Health Inequalities and SocialDeterminants of Health

• Health Systems, Economics, and Policy

• Public Health, International Law andGovernance (for MSc Global Health,Law, and Governance)

Specialist modules• Social Determinants of Health:Ecological Approaches

• Primary Health Care: Theory andPractice

• Globalisation and Health Care Reform• Intellectual Property, Medicine andHealth

Elective modules• Globalisation and ContemporaryMedical Ethics

• Research Appraisal and Synthesis• Migration, Culture and Health• Patients, Quality and Safety• Human Rights and Public Health• Managing Innovation and Change inHealth Systems: Policy and Practice

• Global Politics of Health• Narrative Medicine in Clinical Practice:Patients, Families and Systems

Modes of studyThe MSc programmes can be completed in one year on a full-time basis, up to threeyears part-time, or up to five years on a‘variable mode’ basis (ie, modular orportfolio).

Flexible learningWhilst this is an academic programme of study primarily intended to lead to apostgraduate degree, students can choose to take individual modules either for assessed study or for non-assessedcontribution towards their professionaldevelopment.

FeesThese fees are from 2012-13 and aare given as general guidance. Up to date and correct fees can be found at www.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/tuitionfees

Full-time: UK/EU £6,000; overseas £10,000

Part-time: UK/EU £3,000; overseas £5,000per year (for two years, or pro rata forlonger)

Bench fees: £300

Core modules

Key staff

Professor Allyson Pollockis professor of public health research and policy and co-director of the Global Health, Policy and Innovation Unit. An internationally known scholar in public health medicine, she

was recently described by The Lancet as one “of the UK’s leading publicintellectuals in medicine”. Through her research she brings the wide range of public health disciplines – epidemiological, geographical, legal, economic,political – to bear on important issues in public health and health policy, and particularly in relation to how financing and policy impact on universaland equitable health care provision. Her research covers globalisation,marketisation and privatisation of public services, pharmaceuticals, and health inequalities. She has strong links to developing public health programmes in low and middle income countries.

Professor Trish Greenhalghis professor of primary health care and co-director of the GlobalHealth, Policy and Innovation Unit. Described as “one of theinternational stars of general practice” she is the author of eight

textbooks including Primary health care: theory and practice and How toread a paper: the basics of evidence-based medicine. She leads aresearch programme on new technologies in health care, cross-culturalhealth and the personal dimension of health and illness (narrative basedmedicine). She was programme director for the world’s first fully onlineMSc programme in primary health care from 1998 to 2010. In 2001, shereceived an OBE for Services to Medicine.

Professor Richard Ashcroftis professor of bioethics within the Department of Law and isco-director of the Centre for the Study of Incentives in Health.His research covers human rights theory, law and practice in

bioethics policy, and ethical challenges in public health. His particularinterest is biomedical research ethics: he is a member of the Ethics andPolicy Advisory Committee of the UK Medical Research Council andDirector of the Appointing Authority for Phase I Ethics Committees.

Professor Sandra Eldridge is Professor of Biostatistics and joint lead of the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health. With a background inmathematics and postgraduate training in health services

research, she is an internationally recognised authority in the methodologyof randomised controlled trials. Her research interests include clusterrandomised trials, the development and evaluation of complexinterventions, especially the use of mathematical modelling to refinecomplex interventions, and systematic review. She leads an internationalcollaborative research programme on complex intervention trials.

Professor Johanna Gibson is Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law anddirector of the Queen Mary Intellectual Property ResearchInstitute in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies. She is also

the director of the independent research charity, the Intellectual PropertyInstitute. She is Chair of the UK Intellectual Property Office Expert AdvisoryCommittee on Trade and Development and a member of the DG-Researchand Innovation expert panel on international knowledge transfer. Johannaholds first class degrees in cultural and critical theory, animal sciences, andlaw.

Dr Dave McCoyis a senior clinical lecturer in the social determinants of health,and head of Public Health Intelligence for Inner North WestLondon. He worked in South Africa for 10 years in rural

hospitals, public health and health systems development, highereducation, and NGOs. He is a member of the steering council for thePeoples’ Health Movement and was managing editor for both the first andsecond Global Health Watch (an alternative world health report). He is theprogramme lead for intercalated global health.

Professor Maxine Robertson is professor of innovation and organisation in the School ofBusiness and Management. Her research focuses on the inter-related areas of networked innovation, knowledge work, and

professional identity. Most of Maxine’s research is conducted within thebiomedical sector, drawing upon the drug development process as aprime exemplar of networked innovation. Maxine is a member of the UKNational Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence Implementation StrategyGroup.

Dr Petra Sevcikovais senior lecturer in health systems. An experienced lecturer atpostgraduate level, she is a fellow of the Higher EducationAcademy. She trained in economics, and her research focuses

on the regulation of the pharmaceutical industry, such as standards ofquality, and the intersection of economic and public health issues relatedto the international harmonisation and enforcement of such regulations.She is the MSc programmes lead.

Any section of this publication is available upon request in accessible formats (large print, audio, etc). For furtherinformation and assistance, please contact: DiversitySpecialist, hr-equality@qmul.ac.uk, 020 7882 5585

Queen Mary,University of London

Further informationInformal approaches are welcome at any time. Please contact:

Dr James Lancaster+44 (0)20 7882 7212j.p.lancaster@qmul.ac.ukCentre for Primary Care and Public Health, 58 Turner Street, London E1 2AB

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