Postgraduate studies in healthcare: How Hong Kong’s universities have taken lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic and monkeypox to improve the delivery of health education
- Professionals who understand healthcare systems and how they are run are crucial in developing strategies to tackle widespread emergencies and cope with pandemics
- HKU, CUHK and HKBU offer advanced public health courses that prepare students in the field and equip them to handle the continuing global challenges
The world’s experience with Covid-19 and more recently monkeypox has demonstrated how important healthcare education is to the effective functioning of society. While frontliners like doctors, nurses and other carers have been of utmost importance, public health professionals with a holistic understanding of healthcare systems and how they are run have arguably been just as crucial.
A master’s in public health (MPH) helps prospective healthcare professionals gain a thorough view of how health systems work, the strategies involved in running them and how to make sure they meet the needs of the public at large. Ultimately, such people will be the ones deeply involved in developing future strategies to cope with pandemics such as Covid-19 and other widespread health emergencies.
In Hong Kong, multiple universities offer postgraduate education in public health, and all these programmes have taken the lessons of the pandemic and adopted technologies to improve the delivery of education. The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) all offer advanced programmes in public health that aim to train the next generation of professionals in the field and equip them with the know-how to deal with the challenges that will continue to emerge.
HKU’s MPH programme, which has a wide focus, prepares students to work in a variety of settings, from community to international. It is available in one-year full-time and two-year part-time modes, with an intake of up to 180 students.
“Our programme is a broadly based, student-centred, problem-based learning environment designed to encourage the acquisition of subject breadth and depth in biostatistics, environmental health sciences, epidemiology, health policy and administration, and social/behavioural sciences,” said Wendy Lam, academic director of the HKU MPH programme.
