Profile and Career

The MSc in Global Health is a research-based, cross-disciplinary degree programme that fosters graduates with analytical and practical skills related to human health in a globalised world. This gives graduates a wide range of career opportunities.

Graduates in Global Health are able to analyse interrelated determinants impacting human health and disease. These determinants range on a scale from individual to society, focusing on the global perspective - including politics, policies, trade and economy, frameworks, socio-cultural issues, and climate change.

 

Globally, there is a great inequality in health status and this inequality is a barrier for development. Better health provides economic development, quality of life, and safety. For example, a newborn in Sierra Leone can expect to have 29 healthy years, compared to 75 years in Japan.

The health status of populations and individuals is increasingly dependent on processes at a global level:

  • Increased physical mobility; voluntarily (e.g. in the form of increased travel) and involuntarily (e.g. in connection with disasters and conflicts) resulting in new distribution patterns of infectious diseases.

  • Urbanization and increasing population sizes, which causes increased pressure on existing resources, including water, forests, and farmland.

  • Social mobility; disease patterns are changing rapidly in low and middle income countries in the context of the economic and climatic development. This requires adaptation of health systems and educational institutions.

  • Intensified over-national cooperation is increasingly affecting the national political and economic framework. For example, regarding food production and food security, trade and distribution of medicines.

Additionally, a rapid development is occurring in technologies for prevention and treatment; creating new opportunities for health, including medical tourism and distant diagnosis and treatment.

 

 

Upon completion of the Global Health programme, you will possess skills in collecting, processing, and evaluating global health related data, using a range of information- and communication-technology tools and databases. You will possess complex problem solving skills, which enables you to address particular questions and issues of global health in depth.

As a graduate, you will be able to:

  • Design, carry out, and co-ordinate scientifically valid and focused research.

  • Evaluate the effects of evidence-based interventions.
  • Evaluate, validate, and disseminate existing data to advance knowledge in a particular problem area or issue.

  • Advise on, and formulate effective responses to complex practice and policy issues.

  • Communicate your knowledge and findings to a wide range of audiences using different media and strategies.
  • Independently plan, communicate, and realise new innovative initiatives and sustainable strategies to improve health, and prevent and control diseases.

  • Initiate, sustain, and supervise effective cross-disciplinary team work.

  • Assume responsibility for continuous professional development.

  • Promote equity, justice, and dignity via your professional practice.

  • Implement procedures for managing health partnerships with integrity and respect.

 

 

Depending on your interests and specialisation, the MSc in Global Health programme can lead your career in many directions and to jobs in different sectors.

Examples of relevant workplaces at home and abroad include:

  • Bilateral and multilateral development agencies
  • NGOs
  • Consulting firms
  • Pharmaceutical and medical companies
  • The food industry
  • Government bodies and public authorities
  • Higher education and research Institutions
  • Patient organisations
  • Health facilities
  • Donor and funding agencies

 

 

 

Alumni interviews