MSc Occupational Medicine

Fees for entry in 2027 have not yet been set. For reference, the fees for the academic year beginning September 2026 were as follows:

• MSc (full-time distance learning)
  UK students (per annum): £15,200
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £31,500
• MSc (part-time distance learning)
  UK students (per annum): £6,080 for year 1 and 2, and £3,040 for year 3
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £12,600 for year 1 and 2, and £6,300 for year 3
• PGDip (part-time distance learning)
  UK students (per annum): £6,100
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £12,600
• PGCert (part-time distance learning)
  UK students (per annum): £3,000
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £6,300

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

Students opting for MSc 1 year full-time or 2 year part-time course of study could qualify for a PGT loan from the UK government. Please see our university pages or contact admissions.

Students studying our MSc programme over 3 years part-time may also be eligible for a postgraduate loan if there is no other suitable full time equivalent course available in the UK at the time of application. Please contact our admissions for more information.

Please note: The fees do not cover any costs for travel or accommodation related to any optional on campus events.

Several of our students are sponsored by their employers or the governments of their home countries.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

For the latest scholarship and bursary information please visit the fees and funding page.

A limited number of Equity and Merit scholarships are available to applicants from Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Please visit the Equity and Merit scholarships page for full details.

To practice occupational health safely and professionally, occupational health practitioners (for example occupational hygienists and occupational physicians) need to be able to appraise and apply the existing body of evidence to their decision-making. Understanding the concepts and principles of epidemiology enables students to conduct their own research, and interpret the findings of other studies. In this unit, students will learn the principles underpinning epidemiological research, including study design, bias and confounding and their application to occupational health. The unit also covers appraisal of existing literature, as well as addressing the diverse methods used in quantitative and qualitative research studies.

This unit aims to give students the skills required to undertake their own research and to critically appraise existing studies. The unit will enable students to develop an in-depth understanding of epidemiological study design and execution. Students will learn about the importance of critical appraisal, both in their assessment of existing literature and when designing research projects. Topics include the importance of reviewing the evidence base before making professional or clinical decisions, and how to design and undertake research studies using qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

The learning outcomes intend to:

• allow students to apply epidemiological thinking and methodologies to complex occupational health problems;
• enable students to critically assess existing research, and their own work, considering the appropriateness of study design, methods and interpretation;
• illustrate the specific considerations required in the design and implementation of social research studies

• Epidemiology 
• Evidence Based Practice
• Critical Appraisal
• Social Research Methods

Learning and teaching will take the form of online materials supported by online synchronous lectures, webinars, group discussion, tutorial, and optional on campus workshops, where applicable. Canvas will be used for course materials, group discussions, announcements, reading lists and for online assessments. 

On completion, students should be able to:

• utilise appropriate quantitative and/or qualitative research methods to investigate occupational health questions;
• describe the features of key study designs;
• demonstrate understanding of the principles and concepts of statistical inference, bias and confounding in the context of epidemiological studies;
• interpret and evaluate environmental exposure and outcome data.

On completion, students should be able to:

• assess the design and methods of a research study and evaluate if they justify the conclusions made;
• evaluate epidemiological data;
• apply the methods used to calculate common measures of mortality and morbidity;

On completion, students should be able to:

• critically assess research studies, considering if their study design and the interpretation of the results are appropriate;
• explain the key methods and research practices that should be included in quantitative and/or qualitative research studies and be able to apply them in an occupational health context; and
• identify ethical concerns that can arise during a research study.  

On completion, students should be able to:

• apply their critical analysis skills to assess not only research outputs, but also to identify areas of concern in other areas; and
• apply information gathering and evaluation skills to other aspects of practice.

Approved by the Faculties of Occupational Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians of London (FOM) and Ireland (FOM-I) 

Description	Weighting	Length
Written assignment on case study examples in occupational and environmental epidemiology	80%	2,500 words
Discussion Board Task	20%	450 words

Formative assessments with automatic feedback are available throughout the unit as an aid to understanding the course materials. Feedback for the summative assessments is provided by tutors via Canvas. Students may also receive direct feedback from interaction with session leaders throughout the course of study. 

• Agius R, Seaton A. Practical occupational medicine 2nd ed. London: Hodder Arnold 2005. ISBN 034075947X OR Tar-Ching A, Gardiner K, Harrington, JM. Occupational health (Pocket Consultants) 5th ed. Wiley-Blackwell 2006.  ISBN- 10 1405122218; ISBN-13 978-1405122214.
• Coggon D, Rose G, Barker DJP.  Epidemiology for the uninitiated 5th ed.  BMJ Publishing 2003.  ISBN 0727916041.
• Campbell MJ, Machin D.  Medical statistics: a commonsense approach 3rd ed.  John Wiley and Sons 1999.  ISBN 0471987212.
• Greenhalgh T. How to read a paper - the basics of evidence-based medicine 4th edition. Wiley-Blackwell 2010. ISBN-10: 1444334360.
• Sackett DL, Straus SE, Richardson WS, Rosenberg W, Haynes RB. Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM 2nd ed. Churchill Livingstone 2000. ISBN 0443062404.

Students enrolled on the course can access recommended resources through their University of Manchester library account. 

If you have any questions regarding the content of this unit, please contact the Course Unit Leader Nicola Gartland, via nicola.gartland@manchester.ac.uk.

If you have any other queries, please contact the Programmes team via shs.programmes@manchester.ac.uk