Global Health

Program Description

Why study Global Health at VU Amsterdam?
New and emerging infectious diseases, changing disease patterns, rising healthcare costs – just some of the factors that add complexity to the health challenges the world is facing. Many diseases do not stop at borders and most health problems have a social, political and economic impact. These issues require extensive analysis from different points of view to develop innovative health interventions. In the Research Master’s programme in Global Health you will get to grips with the wider context of health challenges.

STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAMME
This innovative Research Master’s offers you a research-based approach to global health that spans a range of disciplines and encompasses a systems-based perspective. You will receive two years of research training supervised by professors and have the opportunity to produce your own PhD research grant proposal.
As a Master’s student in Global Health, you acquire the knowledge, skills and attitude to analyse complex national and international health challenges, and to design, implement and evaluate integral intervention strategies to meet complex global health challenges. You will learn to build on systems thinking, as well as research that combines and transcends individual disciplines. The programme has four components: compulsory courses, elective courses, and two research internships of five months each.

Highlights

This programme is the only research master in Global Health. The system’s perspective, and its associated transdisciplinary research, is the recurring theme throughout the programme. Research tools, techniques and approaches are an integral part of every course and culminate into two research projects (internships).

What`s Included

In the first year of the programme, courses 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 as well as how to measure the effectiveness of such strategies by using qualitative and quantitative research methods, involving multiple stakeholders and perspectives. In the second year, you will further deepen your knowledge on global health problems and your research skills.