Erasmus Mundus - Master Course in Public Health in Disasters (EMMPHID)

The aim of the master programme is to, through knowledge, experience and research build capacities that will reduce disaster risks and contribute to better and more targeted public health based relief following disasters. The Master has the following four objectives:

1. To increase the knowledge and understanding of the disaster phenomenon, its different contextual aspects, impacts and public health consequences.
2. To increase the knowledge and understanding of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR) and to increase skills and abilities for implementing the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Strategy.
3. To ensure skills and abilities to analyse potential effects of disasters and of the strategies and methods to deliver public health response to avert these effects.
4. To ensure skills and ability to design, implement and evaluate research on disasters.

Learning outcomes

The objectives of the EMJMDPHID have been designed to achieve general and specific learning outcomes. General learning outcomes are listed below. Specific learning outcomes for each EMJMDPHID module are shown in the section on academic structure.

The EMJMDPHID generic learning outcomes of EMJMDPHID encompass a series of capacities that will allow the student to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the role of Public Health in disaster situations, including both a broad command of the field and a deeper knowledge of specific areas, together with insight into current research and development work and to demonstrate deeper methodological knowledge related to their chosen study track:

• Capacity to integrate knowledge and to analyse, evaluate and manage the different public health aspects of disaster events at a local and global levels, even when limited information is available.
• Capacity to describe, analyse and evaluate the environmental, social, cultural, economic, legal and organisational aspects influencing vulnerabilities and capacities to face disasters.
• Capacity to work theoretically and practically in the processes of disaster management (disaster risk reduction, response, and recovery) and relate their interconnections, particularly in the field of the Public Health aspects of the disasters.
• Capacity to manage the Public Health aspects of the disasters.
• Capacity to obtain, analyse, and communicate information on risks, relief needs and lessons learned from earlier disasters in order to formulate strategies for mitigation in future scenarios with the ability to clearly present and discuss their conclusions and the knowledge and arguments behind them.
• Capacity to design and perform research on the different aspects of the emergencies and disaster events while demonstrating insight into the potential and limitations of science, its role in society and people’s responsibility for how it is used.
• Capacity to analyse and evaluate research work on the field of emergencies and disaster while demonstrating insight into the potential and limitations of science, its role in society and people’s responsibility for how it is used.

University Consortium

The EMJMDPHID is organized by a consortium of three European universities (Universidad de Oviedo, Karolinska Institutet and University of Nicosia) with the collaboration of other associated centres and institutions outside the European Union. A brief description of the partner universities will follows.

Karolinska Institutet

Karolinska Institutet accounts for over 40 per cent of the medical academic research conducted in Sweden and offers the country´s broadest range of education in medicine and health sciences.

University of Nicosia

University of Nicosia is the largest university in Cyprus with over 11,500 students. It is an independent, co-educational, equal opportunity institution of higher education, which offers a wide range of programmes to students from around the world.

Universidad de Oviedo

The Universidad de Oviedo founded in 1604 is one of the oldest academic institutions in Spain having recently celebrated its 400th anniversary.

TIMETABLE

The EMJMDPHID course lasts two academic years from October to August divided in 4 periods.

Period 1 (September to February) will be held at the Universidad de Oviedo (Oviedo, Spain) where all students will receive the courses containing the common core disaster elements. Then students will have Period 2 (March-December) wich is a mandatory mobility according to their assigned specialization study track and also inlcude a preparation for internship and Master Thesis:

• The track in Public health response to disasters will be held at Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden) and is developed to serve the educational need of disaster related professionals planning to work in disasters health response as well as those with previous experience from this field.

• The track in Epidemiology and Research in Disasters  will be held at University of Nicosia (Nicosia, Cyprus) and the students will follow the Advanced Disaster Epidemiology, Statistics and Research Methods module. The advanced research methodological module is aimed for the disaster related professionals interested in disaster research or in academic and educational aspects.

In Period 3 (January-March) students will continue their respective advanced modules according to study track focus plus a hands-on, practical internship at any of the universities or associated centres included in the program, in which they will collect the data for their Masters Theses and the Master’s Thesis presentation. The following table summarized the timetable of activities of the Master. Finally in Period 4 (April-August) students will prepare, submit and defend their Master Thesis.