M.Sc. in Global Health (Research Master)

Master

In Amsterdam (Netherlands)

£ 12,173.20 VAT inc.

*Indicative price

Original amount in EUR:

14,236 €

Description

  • Type

    Master

  • Location

    Amsterdam (Netherlands)

  • Duration

    2 Years

  • Start date

    September

Are you eager to unravel the complexities of global health challenges like COVID-19, maternal mortality and mental illness?
Do you want to learn how to analyse global health problems and develop solutions? Do you want to contribute to better and more equitable health for all? During the research master’s in Global Health, you will study cross-cutting aspects of health problems and healthcare systems with students from all over the world. You will explore latest developments regarding topics such as infectious and chronic diseases, child and elderly care, and the financial burden of healthcare costs. You will learn to apply inter- and transdisciplinary approaches and a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research methods. And you will gain experience in designing, implementing and ‘measuring’ interventions that address complex health challenges.

Facilities

Location

Start date

Amsterdam (Netherlands)
See map

Start date

SeptemberEnrolment now open

About this course

Within the research master’s in Global Health, special attention is given to developing your ability to critically assess research designs and research proposals. Building on systems thinking and interdisciplinary research, the programme offers an intensive study of multiple aspects of healthcare systems, including burden of disease, finance, regulatory mechanisms, power constellations, the network society and change management.

The increasing complexity of global health issues has resulted from the following four relatively recent developments:

Globalisation: Diseases ‘globalise’ through the increased mobility of people and goods at a rapid pace around the world.
Socio-economic developments: Socio-economic developments that arise at national level often (if not always) have an impact on the rest of the world and are important for many aspects of 'health'.
Rise of global governance: Increasingly, organisations like the United Nations (UN) set global targets that aim to highlight and tackle global problems to provide universal realisation of human rights across the globe.
Emerging infectious diseases: New and emerging infectious diseases (e.g. Zika, Ebola or zoonosis, such as COVID-19) require collaborative research and innovation from the world’s leading research institutes, as well as considerable financial investments.
This complexity demands innovative research strategies in order to improve health equity around the world.

Whether you’re looking to become a researcher, public health advocate or policy advisor, the opportunities are endless.
Employers recognise that Global Health graduates from VU Amsterdam are adept at the skills required to face global health challenges, such as:
• critically assessing research designs and researc, h proposals
• designing, implementing and ‘measuring’ interventions that address complex health challenges
• analysing and comparing different healthcare systems
• bringing together a variety of stakeholders to generate innovative solutions

As a Global Health graduate, you can work in many different types of jobs, including:
• lecturer
• researcher
• policy advisor
• public health advocate

You will also be well-equipped for a PhD programme at a university or research institute.

The research master’s in Global Health allows you to conduct two internships of five months each. You have the freedom to choose your own research topics and to work anywhere around the world, as long as the research meets certain criteria. The partners in the programme also open up their research projects to students and advertise these placements in advance.

During the two internships you learn how to set-up, execute and analyse the results of your own research as well as how to present and discuss research data in a professional way with different audiences. Conducting two internships not only gives you the opportunity to explore different health problems and contexts, but it also allows you to put mixed methods and transdisciplinarity into practice, to gain insights into the possibilities for your career, and to begin to create your professional network.

Examples of past internships are:

integrated disease prevention, monitoring and treatment using the One Health approach in South Africa
health professionals’ accountability towards women who are receiving maternal healthcare in Malawi
stakeholder perspectives on efforts to effectively reduce antimalarial drug resistance, Medical Research Council in The Gambia
the evaluation and implementation of HIV/TB guidelines in Dutch HIV care centres, Amsterdam Institute of Global Health and Development (AIGHD)
mixed-methods study of nurses’ experiences with palliative care in mental health facilities, Department of Public and Occupational Health at the VU University Medical Center

Questions & Answers

Add your question

Our advisors and other users will be able to reply to you

Who would you like to address this question to?

Fill in your details to get a reply

We will only publish your name and question

Reviews

This centre's achievements

2020

All courses are up to date

The average rating is higher than 3.7

More than 50 reviews in the last 12 months

This centre has featured on Emagister for 6 years

Subjects

  • Global
  • Healthcare
  • Systems
  • Health
  • Stakeholders
  • Working
  • Solutions
  • Innovative
  • Achieving
  • Enormously
  • Relevant
  • Distinctions

Course programme

Curriculum

Improving health and achieving equity in healthcare

The study, research and practice of global health is geared towards improving health and achieving equity in healthcare. If you are eager to look beyond national boundaries and disciplinary distinctions when it comes to health and healthcare, then our master’s programme in Global Health may be a good fit for you.

The research master’s in Global Health is a small-scale programme with a ‘hands-on’ approach. It brings together students and staff from all over the world with a wide variety of academic backgrounds. This diversity of perspectives enriches the discussions in your courses and your team projects. Through intensive individual and group research assignments and the two internships, you will have ample opportunity to discover where your passions lie within global health.

COVID-19 pandemic

With the current COVID-19 pandemic, we are facing one of the greatest global health challenges of our time. This has created an ‘all hands on deck’ situation with our researchers and students to understand this enormously complex challenge and to develop innovative solutions. Within the Athena Institute, we are currently working on different research project on COVID 19. Find out more by visiting our dedicated website about COVID-19.

Large-scale, sustainable impact

Analysing health problems locally usually leads to small-scale changes that are not very sustainable. In this programme, you work to achieve a larger-scale and sustainable impact by taking a systems approach, by looking beyond the local level to the different ways of institutionalising and influencing policies. Understanding problems and developing solutions at this level requires interacting with a lot of actors during your research, including health professionals, patients, policymakers, and other public- and private-sector stakeholders. In this programme, you will learn how to identify the relevant stakeholders, how to interact with them, and how to co-create solutions. Global health research is far from sitting behind a desk and crunching numbers; it’s about working with a variety of others to solve health problems that affect the lives of many people around the world.

The start date of this programme is September 1st.

First year

In the first year of the programme, you will focus on the study of complex global health problems in high- and low-income countries. You will learn how to analyse problems, design intervention strategies and measure the effectiveness of such strategies using qualitative and quantitative research methods involving multiple stakeholders and perspectives. You will also learn how to study health problems and interventions in the broader context of governmental policy and national health systems and to compare these between countries.
The curriculum includes four core courses, an elective course and a mixed-methods research internship in the Netherlands or abroad.

Second year

In the second year, you will take two courses on advanced quantitative analysis methods and transdisciplinary research. You will then focus on your scientific writing skills and conduct a literature review. You will also learn to analyse ethical dilemmas in global health, and will be guided in writing a research grant proposal. The master’s programme is rounded off with the master’s thesis, in which you present the research findings from your second internship in a scientific article.

M.Sc. in Global Health (Research Master)

£ 12,173.20 VAT inc.

*Indicative price

Original amount in EUR:

14,236 €