Course: Public Health

General

General
Public Health: the Basics Homepage
Introduction

This course offers Public Health capacity building for health professionals. It provdes a basic introduction to key aspects and roles of public health.
The course is designed to help you:
Understand the broad concepts and issues in public health.
Understand the health systems of countries of interest to you.
This course is an Open Online Course (OOC) that has been adopted from Peoples-uni. It was further developed by NextGenU.org (NGU) and sponsored in part by the Annenberg Physician Training Program (APTP).
There are seven (7) modules to complete, which include:
Module 1: Definitions and Roles of Public Health
Module 2: Epidemiology
Module 3: Health Systems
Module 4: An Evidence Base for Public Health
Module 5: Health Inequalities
Module 6: Health Promotion
Module 7: Workforce Needs in Public Health
Approximate time for completion of this course is 7 hours at an average reading rate of 144 words/minute.
Engaging with this course
To register for this course, complete the registration form. Begin the course with Module 1. For each lesson, read the description.
Each lesson comprises introductory remarks. You can click on the collections of resources in each section.
There is a forum on each lesson for reflection, and you will be able to add a new topic or respond to a previous one. You may want to share your learning from this and other readings, comment on the topics from your own experience, comment on others' posts, or provide feedback on how we can improve the content and/or presentation.
There is a final quiz to assess your understanding of some important concepts. Click on the hyperlinks to take you to these items in each topic.

Requirements to obtain the certificate
You may browse this course for free to learn for your personal enrichment. There are no requirements.
To obtain a certificate, a learner must successfully complete:
All reading requirements
All discussion forums
The final exam with a minimum of 70% and a maximum of 3 attempts and
The self and course evaluation forms

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*This course is sponsored in part by the Annenberg Physician Training Program: Abstinence-based Recovery from Addictive Disease. Click here to see curricular threading related to mental health disorders.
Module 1: Definitions and Roles of Public Health

After completing this Module, you should be able to identify and understand the definition and roles of Public Health which are relevant to your own setting.

1 Page, 1 Forum
- Resources Lesson 1: Definitions of Public Health Page
- Reflection: Definitions of Public Health Forum
  Reflect on the importance of the population as the basis of all definitions of Public Health.
Module 2: Epidemiology

After completing this Module, you should be aware that Epidemiology is the study of disease in groups, hence is the key scientific underpinning of Public Health.

1 Page, 1 Forum
- Resources Lesson 1: Epidemiology Page
- Reflection: Epidemiology Forum
  Reflect on this description of epidemiology as "the study of how often diseases occur in different groups of people and why," and consider what information you might need in an epidemiologic study.
Module 3: Health Systems

After completing this Module, you should understand the way that various countries establish systems to protect and promote the health of the public.

1 Page, 1 Forum
- Resources Lesson 1: Health Systems Page
- Reflection: Health Systems Forum
  Reflect on the steps that might be needed to strengthen health systems in your setting.
Module 4: An Evidence Base for Public Health

After completing this Module, you should understand the importance of creating and applying an evidence base to finding solutions to the health problems facing populations.

1 Page, 1 Forum
- Resources Lesson 1: Evidence Based Public Health Page
- Reflection: An Evidence Base Forum
  Accepting this statement from the Resources section above "Public health practitioners must be ready to implement an evidence-based approach in their work," can you identify one area in which there is a need for evidence in your setting?
Module 5: Health Inequalities

After completing this Module, you should understand the role of social factors in the development of ill health, how these lead to health inequality, and the major approaches to reducing inequality.

1 Page, 1 Forum, 1 URL
- Resources Lesson 1: Inequalities and the Social Determinants of Health Page
- Reflection: Health Inqualities Forum
  Reflect on how the social determinants of health might give rise to health inequality in your setting.
- Estimating the Global Burden of Mental disorders URL
  Watch the entire video. (53 minutes)
Module 6: Health Promotion

After completing this Module, you should understand the role of Health Promotion in Public Health and the theoretical basis behind the discipline.

1 Page, 1 Forum
- Resources Lesson 1: Health Promotion Page
- Reflection: Health Promotion Forum
  Reflect on the potential for the application of Health Promotion to a health problem in your setting.
Module 7: Workforce Needs in Public Health

After completing this Module, you should be able to understand the issues of workforce needs in Public Health in your setting and the potential for e-learning to help build capacity.

1 Page, 1 Forum
- Resources Lesson 1: Developing Workforce Capacity for Public Health Page
- Reflection: Workforce Needs Forum
  Reflect on whether online learning might be one strategy to help build workforce capacity in your setting.
Final Exam

Click here to start the Final Examination.
- Final Exam Quiz
  Restricted Not available unless:
  The activity Course Registration is marked complete
  The activity Reflection: Definitions of Public Health is marked complete
  The activity Reflection: Epidemiology is marked complete
  The activity Reflection: Health Systems is marked complete
  The activity Reflection: An Evidence Base is marked complete
  The activity Reflection: Health Inqualities is marked complete
  The activity Reflection: Health Promotion is marked complete
  The activity Reflection: Workforce Needs is marked complete
  
  Take this quiz - A score of 7/10 will qualify towards a certificate.
Course and Self Evaluation & Certificate

In this section, you can provide feedback about this course to help us make NextGenU.org better. Once evaluations are completed, you will be able to download your Certificate of Completion.
Click here to give your feedback.
- Course Evaluations Questionnaire
  Restricted Not available unless: The activity Final Exam is marked complete
- Self Evaluation Questionnaire
  Restricted Not available unless: The activity Final Exam is marked complete
Final Quiz

Not available

In this section, you can take a quiz that covers some of the issues raised in the resources above.

You can earn a Certificate of Completion if you have taken the quiz and viewed the resources in each of the Modules above.