Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery

The Department of Public Health conducts research and training in Public Health at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It contributes to the M.D. Course through the teaching of research methods and of introduction to public health sciences.
Our Department also offers two study-units on research methods, statistics and research practicals to the Master of Science by Research students and other Master programmes offered by the Faculty. It has also been running the Postgraduate Master of Science course in Public Health since 1994. This was the first postgraduate course run by the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Malta and was initiated by renowned Malariologist and Infectious Disease Expert Professor Herbert M. Gilles.

The Department teaches undergraduates in Medicine and our staff members are also actively engaged in teaching across different departments and institutes at the University of Malta, particularly at the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Public Health constitutes a compendium of sciences including such areas as Epidemiology, Health Information, Health Management, Environmental Health, Health Promotion, Medical Statistics, Health Economics and Occupational Health. Our Department is actively engaged in teaching these and other areas both at undergraduate as well as postgraduate levels across the University of Malta as well as abroad.

The Department of Public Health is engaged in a tri-partite committee, together with the Ministry of Health and the Malta Association of Public Health Medicine (MAPHM), which is updating, developing and running recognised in-service training within the Ministry of Health, leading to the recognition of specialist status in Public Health in Malta.

The Department is also actively engaged in developing public health research in Malta and is a partner in a number of internationally funded research programmes. It has strong links with the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) and the Executive Agency for Health and the Consumer (EAHC) of the European Union?s DG Sanco.

The teaching within the Department is:
based on adult learning techniques
geared for all health professionals, at undergraduate level and for all persons (not only health professionals) with a first degree (second upper or higher) at postgraduate level
conducted by recognised specialists from a number of different areas within public health hailing from Malta and beyond, and
involved in a number of Erasmus Teacher and Student Exchange Programmes.