Public Health

MPH

Location

Stoke-on-Trent campus

Start dates available

  • September 2026

Specialist pathways

Tailor the course to your career goals, with either a Global Health Pathway or Public Health Promotion and Management Pathway

Flexible delivery

Full-time and part-time options, along with the opportunity to achieve a PG certificate, PG diploma or the full MPH

Tailored support

You’ll have access to a research mentor, small groups and lots of support from our academics who bring a wealth of public health expertise

Our MPH Public Health degree helps to prepare you for a rewarding and varied career across public, private and non-governmental sectors.

Public health has never been more critical as we face rising health inequalities, climate-related threats, shifting disease patterns and the need to remain pandemic-ready. Here’s your chance to specialise in this vital field and help shape the health of populations locally, nationally and internationally.

The Masters course will give you a rigorous foundation in epidemiology, health determinants and evidence-based practice, drawing on global health policies and interdisciplinary insights. You’ll also get hands-on exploring case studies and real-world simulations to teach these concepts and develop your public health skills.

Whether you have a background in working for the NHS, international health systems, charities or a different discipline, you’ll be able to tailor the modules to your career interests. You can choose between two specialist routes:

  • Global Health Pathway: You’ll explore different health systems, interventions and contemporary issues that have an impact across national boundaries. This will place you in a good position to apply for roles with government agencies, health institutes or international organisations such as the WHO and Unicef.
  • Public Health Promotion and Management Pathway: You’ll look at how to implement solutions to public health challenges, such as smoking or obesity, and how to drive behaviour change and community engagement. This is ideal if you want to work within a predominantly local or national context.

As public health is so broad – covering everything from engineering to housing issues – you could also secure roles across the public, private and non-governmental sectors. Possible career paths include public health policy, emergency planning, epidemiology, health promotion and global health consultancy. You could consider doctoral research as well.

On successful completion of study, we will issue the following award: MPH Public Health

Duration

University of Staffordshire postgraduate courses are usually 1 academic year duration when studying full-time and 2-3 academic years duration for part-time.

Course content

This programme is ideal for graduates and professionals who aspire to make a meaningful impact on public health at local, national or global levels. We will also help you to develop your leadership skills so you can contribute to system-level change.

You’ll cover the underpinning concepts of public health through lectures and seminars. You will then build on this through interactive workshops and real-world simulations. For these scenarios, you could be tasked with making key decisions, working with digital dashboards and analysing health threats.

Your assessments will also mirror professional practice, with the chance to pitch your ideas to real public health teams. It could involve developing your own health promotion campaign tailored to a specific group. Or you could be stepping into the role of advising a national health security team on a public or global health issue.

Other practice-focused activities will include analysing public health datasets, evaluating current policies and project planning. For your dissertation, you will get to research a topic of your choice in depth.

There will be opportunities to learn from a range of practitioners as well, with guest lectures and collaborations with local authorities and health organisations.

Modules

The tables provide an indicative list of the modules that make up the course for the current academic year. Each module is worth a specified number of credits. Our teaching is informed by research, and modules change periodically to reflect developments in the discipline. We aim to ensure that all modules run as scheduled. If for any reason a module cannot be run we will advise you as soon as possible and will provide guidance on selecting an appropriate alternative module.

PUBLIC HEALTH (GLOBAL HEALTH)

Year 1 compulsory modules
Year 1 compulsory modules
Contemporary Global Health Challenges 30 credits
Epidemiology And Biostatistics 30 credits
Foundations Of Public Health And Health Determinants 30 credits
Global Health Policies, Systems And Leadership 30 credits
Public Health Dissertation 60 credits

PUBLIC HEALTH (HEALTH PROMOTION AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT)

Entry requirements

Honours degree from a UK university at 2:2 or international equivalent from a recognised institution. We also welcome applications from a wide range of backgrounds and professional experience with evidence of your ability to successfully undertake the course and benefit from it.

Careers

The University of Staffordshire MPH prepares graduates for employment across local, national, and global public health systems, combining strong methodological grounding, applied leadership and policy training, digital public health competency, and real world assessment practices aligned with international public health standards.

Students on this programme have the opportunity to enhance their studies with a placement year, gain valuable work experience, and take part in international activities—potentially supported by the Turing funding.

All students have access to Careers, Placements & Employability, our dedicated careers team.

Teaching and assessment

Learning support

Your course tutors will provide lots of support. But you can also take advantage of our Academic Skills team, who can help you with:

  • Study skills (including reading, note-taking and presentation skills)
  • Written English (including punctuation, grammar)
  • Academic writing (including how to reference)
  • Research skills
  • Critical thinking
  • Revision, assessment and exam skills (including time management)

Additional support

If you have additional needs like dyslexia or a sensory impairment, then our Student Inclusion Services are here to help make sure nothing stands in your way.

Fees

For the course starting on 21 September 2026 the tuition fees are:

Tuition fees for MPH-Full-time
Study option UK / Channel Islands International
Full-time £9,435 per course £17,500 per course

If you would like to know more about the fees listed and what this means to you then please get in touch with our Enquiries Team.

Alumni discount

If you've previously completed a University of Staffordshire undergraduate degree (excluding HND and foundation degrees) you may be entitled to a discount of 25% off your course fees for any subsequent postgraduate taught course (terms apply, see the alumni discount page for details). If you have any questions about how this relates to you, please contact feesandbursaries@staffs.ac.uk.

Accommodation and living costs
Accommodation and living costs

Accommodation and living costs are not included in our fees. 

For more information on accommodation and living costs, please see: Accommodation

Sources of financial support

Providing you are studying towards a full Masters qualification you may be able to apply for a postgraduate loan to help with tuition fees, maintenance and other associated costs. Student loans are available for many of our postgraduate degrees and are provided by the Student Loans Company (SLC). The loan can cover a wide range of postgraduate study options; part-time, full-time and distance learning. 

For more information and how to apply visit masters loan.

Apply now to Public Health

Location Award Study option Start date Apply Link
Stoke-on-Trent campus MPH Full-time 21 September 2026 Apply now

Rules and regulations

If you are offered a place at University of Staffordshire, your offer will be subject to our rules, regulations and enrolment conditions, which may vary from time to time.

Students of University of Staffordshire enter into a contract with us and are bound by these rules and regulations, which are subject to change. For more information, please see: University Policies and Regulations

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