Graduate Program

Our Graduate Program offers a broad, multidisciplinary training at the Diploma, Master’s and Doctoral levels in the concepts and methods of the population-based health sciences and their application in the practice of population health, public health and preventive medicine. In addition to training in the core areas of epidemiology, biostatistics and the social sciences as applied to health (anthropology, economics, sociology and political science), students have an opportunity to obtain advanced training in internationally recognized research programs conducted by specialized units within the department such as the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, Centre for Global Public Health, the Northern Medical Unit and the Manitoba First Nations Centre for Aboriginal Health Research. As a result, our graduate students have the opportunity to access both internationally regarded researchers and award winning teachers.

There have been many recent changes to the requirements for our degree programs.

The Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) program is designed to produce individuals who will teach in the community health sciences, train other researchers, design and execute major research projects, and serve as senior advisors and consultants in the area of health care policy and planning. 

Our two master’s programs, the Master of Science (M.Sc.) and Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) degrees, are intended to satisfy the demand of local, regional, provincial and federal health departments for trained community health professionals.  Both Master’s level programs provide core training in epidemiology, public health, health policy planning, and health administration.  The M.Sc. program has a research focus requiring completion of a thesis while the M.P.H. program has a field-placement / practicum integrating applied public health concepts.

The Diploma in Population Health (Dip.P.H.) is course based and aims to provide clinicians and managers in provincial and regional health authorities core knowledge and skills in population health sciences, including epidemiology and biostatistics. This training will produce and better-informed consumers of health research data.

The graduate program has grown rapidly since its beginnings in 1989 with 14 M.Sc. and 3 Ph.D. students. The number of Community Health Science graduate students for the Fall 2011 academic session is anticipated to be 25 Ph.D., 27 M.Sc., 15 M.P.H. and 3 Dip.P.H. students. In addition there are several students enrolled in interdisciplinary programs or taking courses outside our degree programs as occasional students.

Full details of all requirements for all our programs are described in our Student Handbook.