South African working health professionals now have the opportunity to study a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health at Monash South Africa (MSA). The responsibility and urgent need for a well-skilled and trained Public Health workforce have been influenced by the constantly increasing human resource challenges in the healthcare sector. There are few opportunities for training in Public Health at higher education institutions in South Africa. MSA is currently the only institution in Africa offering an undergraduate degree in Public Health. MSA offers opportunities to study Public Health at an Undergraduate, Honours or Postgraduate level.

A qualification or career in Public Health will enable you to produce new knowledge, create powerful ideas and collaborate with others to institute innovative and lower-cost solutions that will improve the health of large number of people at a local, national and international level. Qualified Public Health professionals will enhance their existing careers and promotion opportunities by the knowledge and skills acquired during their studies. Postgraduate Diploma modules focus on epidemiology, population health, managing health systems, health policy, management and leadership, health system research, HIV/AIDS, co-morbidities and the sustainable development agenda as well as planning, evaluation and monitoring of HIV/AIDS and health programmes.

What is Public Health?

Public Health is an exciting, diverse and growing field of study responding to the needs of communities and populations around the world. Public Health practitioners work on large-scale, long-term solutions and where medicine-based practice helps individuals one-to-one while they are sick, the goal of Public Health is to prevent illness and death in large numbers of populations. It is this multiplier effect that attracts many interested in health care and medicine to explore and experience the advantages of a degree or Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health.

Public Health is about prevention. The cost of averting a HIV/AIDS infection through cost effective interventions can be a fraction of the cost of treatment and care for an HIV/AIDs patient. When it comes to cancer, Public Health plays an important role in prevention and screening but also by understanding the social, economic and even emotional landscape of a cancer patient. Public Health further provides an opportunity to educate and promote behaviours that could save lives through early detection. Diseases such as Listeriosis and Ebola have plagued the news this year due to the large number of people affected. To minimize disease and death caused by these epidemics, awareness, prevention and early detection from a Public Health perspective are needed.

Public Health practice is multi-disciplinary and draws from a wide range of disciplines including epidemiologists, statisticians, sociologists, health economics, medical practitioners, dieticians, pharmacists, nurses, environmental health practitioners etc.

Public Health career opportunities include:

  • Health protection of?cer
  • Public health nurse
  • Public Health dietitian / nutritionist
  • Community health worker
  • Public health programme co-ordinator
  • Public health physician
  • Public health policy analyst
  • Epidemiologists
  • Public health researchers
  • Public health managers
  • Health promoter
  • Public health monitoring and evaluation specialist

Enrolment dates:

Students can enrol during any of the intake dates:

Intake 2:  18 August 2018

Intake 3:   29 September 2018

Intake 4:   3 November 2018

Intake 5:   2 February 2019

Intake 6:   9 March 2019

Intake 7:   20 April 2019

Intake 8: 25 May 2019

Each unit runs for five weeks and begins with a scheduled contact session on campus followed by further continuous study and assignment submissions via the Learning Management System (LMS). Contact sessions will occur every second Saturday. International students and students staying outside of Gauteng can access the contact sessions via Zoom.