Undergraduate Teaching in the Department of Public Health & Epidemiology

Academic organisers: Tim Marshall, Judy Powell, Paul Aveyard, Kate Jolly, Tom Marshall

Support: Alison Green, Sharon Murphy, Rachel Watkins, Andrea Laing

MB ChB

The Department provides modules for the undergraduate medical course in the first three years. Year 1: an introduction to the nature, scope and function of Public Health is followed by expositions of some of the tools of the practising public health physician: how health in populations is measured, simple epidemiological concepts such as cause and association, surveillance and risk, and the use of epidemiology in clinical decision-making. This is followed by material concerned with external influences on health (the environment, and occupation), and influences of personal behaviour (tobacco, alcohol and drugs). We conclude the year with a look at aspects of health and health promotion both nationally and internationally.

Year 2: we begin with presentations of epidemiological aspects of the major disease groups: cancers, cardiovascular disease, mental illness, accidents, and sexually transmitted diseases. A block of teaching then covers health economics, policy-making and prioritisation, health needs assessment and audit, and the year finishes with a return to using epidemiology in clinical decision-making. Following a review of these courses, the order of some of the topics is being re-arranged, both within and between years. In both years 1 and 2, about two-thirds of the time is allotted to lectures and one-third to seminars. Examination in each year is by a mixture of MCQs and short notes answers.

Year 3: in the autumn there is an intensive course in Epidemiological Methods, which provides the students with a rigorous methodological base for undertaking population-based enquiries in health and health care. This is followed by the Project, in which, working in groups of 2-4, the students themselves identify a topic for study and undertake their own research on the subject. This has been a spectacularly successful part of the course: students regularly win national prizes for this work, and many projects result in publication in peer-reviewed journals.

At present, the Department makes no contribution to undergraduate teaching later in the course. Staff do, however, contribute to other parts of the undergraduate curriculum, notably to an introductory Medical Statistics course in year 1 and the second year Disability Studies module; and to other undergraduate courses run within the medical school such as providing the statistics module in the second year of the B.Med.Sci. degree.