MPH Occupational Health

This unit covers the key principles of communicable disease control. This unit has been designed to be relevant and interesting, to clinicians (including intercalating medical students), researchers and/or those currently in public health roles in all countries.

This course will explore the general principles of communicable disease control, so is applicable for students from both the UK and elsewhere. We will include essential sections on infectious disease, disease surveillance, and outbreak management. We will draw on examples of a broad range of important diseases, including TB, influenza, diarrhoeal disease and HIV/AIDS. In addition, certain themes will run throughout this unit including the importance of understanding evidence and the importance of application in your own context.

Students choosing 'Communicable Disease Control' will need to be available for the face to face/online teaching sessions that will be in the timetable. These will be delivered on campus at the University of Manchester and online. The teaching sessions will involve live webinars, presentations and discussions. 

This is an interactive online 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 is mandatory for the Communicable Disease Prevention and Control stream.

This unit aims for students to gain an understanding of the principles of communicable disease control and their application in a range of situations.

• Demonstrate an understanding of the determinants, scope and control of infectious disease.
• Demonstrate an understanding of surveillance as applied to infectious diseases.
• Apply epidemiological principles to interpret communicable disease related evidence.

• Students will explore the relationship between infectious disease agents, modes of transmission and hosts.
• Students will explore surveillance systems at local, national and international levels
• Students will investigate the principles of control measures and outbreak detection, monitoring and management.
• Students will learn about a simple modelling framework for the transmission of infections to understand the dynamics of how infections spread through populations.
• Infectious disease control programmes - here students will look at the steps involved in developing and evaluating programmes. The role of strategy will be assessed and how this is then translated into operational management. Case studies of key conditions will be used throughout including; influenza, diarrhoeal disease, HIV, TB and haemorrhagic fevers.

This course involves working through course notes provided online, linked references and other sources of information. The course notes include relevant case studies and are supported by videos, podcasts and webinars. This is an interactive online 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.

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For further information, please watch this video from our Course Unit Leader.

If you have any questions about the content of this unit, please contact the course unit leader, Anjana Sahu, via email on anjana.sahu@manchester.ac.uk. If you have any other queries, please contact the PGT programme team via email on shs.programmes@manchester.ac.uk.