MPH Public Health (Web-based Learning) / Course details

This course unit will be of interest to anyone who wishes to explore the concept of “you are what you eat”. It will be relevant to health professionals, policymakers, managers and public health practitioners. The course will examine how good nutrition is not only important to individuals, but also for good population health. We will consider what is good nutrition and investigate the impacts of not eating well and the global obesity threat. How effective are nutritional policies in ensuring good health. Does a good diet make you clever? What are global nutritional policies that improve population health?

Students choosing ‘Nutrition and Public Health’ will need to be available for the face to face teaching block from 27-29 June at the University of Manchester. This will involve live webinars, presentations and group work. It will also include a group presentation as one of your assignments. In the event of a change in government policy preventing face to face teaching, the teaching block will be moved online.  We will keep you informed of any changes via My Manchester and regular Programme communications.

This is an interactive on-line course. Students must work through the online course material. Students are encouraged to use the Blackboard discussion boards to ask questions and check their understanding of the course material.

This unit aims to

• Provide an introduction to nutrition, including major nutrients for human (cabohydrates, fats, fibre, minerals, proteins, vitamins, and water), nutrition and food groups, dietary pattern and dietary index, and overall eating guideline, within the context of Public Health
• Develop students understanding of the relationship between malnutrition (both undernutrition and overnutrition) and health
• Develop students understanding of how public health interventions can improve nutrition (including the potential unintended consequences of this)
• Develop students understanding of how policies, societies, industries, individuals can contribute to public health nutritional issues

Key themes
What does nutrition include and what is good diet
How nutrition can contribute to public health issues
How policy, societies, industries, individuals can improve public health nutrition
How to appraise evidence in public health nutrition critically
 

This unit will include text provided by the tutors, online videos/podcasts/recorded lectures plus required and additional reading of articles and relevant literature. It will include reflective study tasks, and topic-based discussions hosted on Blackboard. It also involves attending a 3 day face to face component.

Material provided will be diverse in nature, Peer-reviewed publications will be highlighted (and accessed through the University library). Media articles and videos will also be included to demonstrate the implications and impacts of nutrition in health.

Topic specific intended learning outcomes outlined for each week of the course will supplement the intended learning outcomes set out in section 3.

An alternative way of assessing students is being proposed as a trial instead of a traditional mid-term summative assessment graded by the assessors alone. This module will look at peer assessment and assessment utilising technology such as interactive online tests which can facilitate learner led and on demand formative assessment. Peer assessment will include an online group who are instructed to write a short scientific report on a specified topic. A group mark will be awarded which will be influenced by students’ interactions with the group. Following feedback an updated revised and resubmitted report will be written. This can then be subject to anonymised peer assessment which will produce a final grade.

Students will be provided with personalised feedback for their group presentation and final summative assignment, within 15 working days for the group presentation and 20 working days for final submission.

Further opportunities for formative feedback (on non-assessed work) will also be provided during the course unit.

Books / Journals

Holford, P. & Lawson, S. (2009). 'Optimum Nutrition Made Easy', Nutrition & Food Science.

Ge, L., Sadeghirad, B., Ball, G. D. C., da Costa, B. R., Hitchcock, C. L., Svendrovski, A., Kiflen, R., Quadri, K., Kwon, H. Y., Karamouzian, M., Adams-Webber, T., Ahmed, W., Damanhoury, S., Zeraatkar, D., Nikolakopoulou, A., Tsuyuki, R. T., Tian, J., Yang, K., Guyatt, G. H. & Johnston, B. C. (2020). 'Comparison of dietary macronutrient patterns of 14 popular named dietary programmes for weight and cardiovascular risk factor reduction in adults: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised trials', BMJ, 369, p. m696.

Downer, S., Berkowitz, S. A., Harlan, T. S., Olstad, D. L. & Mozaffarian, D. (2020). 'Food is medicine: actions to integrate food and nutrition into healthcare', Bmj, 369, p. m2482.

Ordovas, J. M., Ferguson, L. R., Tai, E. S. & Mathers, J. C. (2018). 'Personalised nutrition and health', Bmj, 361, p. bmj.k2173.

Websites

WHO health topic on Nutrition https://www.who.int/health-topics/nutrition

The eatwell guide https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/the-eatwell-guide/?tabname=food-and-diet

Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025 https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/resources/2020-2025-dietary-guidelines-online-materials

Series from the Lancet journals
The Double Burden of Malnutrition https://www.thelancet.com/series/double-burden-malnutrition
Maternal and Child Nutrition https://www.thelancet.com/series/maternal-and-child-nutrition
 

If you have any questions about the content of this unit, please contact one of the course unit leaders, Professor Arpana Verma (mph.director@manchester.ac.uk) or Zixing Tian (zixing.tian@manchester.ac.uk). If you have any other queries, please contact the PGT programme administrators via email on mph.admin@manchester.ac.uk.