Achieving better health and well-being requires three considerations: helping people to make healthier choices for themselves, creating an environment which promotes health, and ensuring that health-related policy is developed to support this.
This programme develops knowledge and skills relating to the evidence-base which guides prevention strategies. The programme builds on these to consider how nutritional knowledge can be used to plan, implement and evaluate initiatives with different groups in the community and to develop policy at local, national and international levels.
Why study Public Health Nutrition at Chester?
This popular programme meets current training needs regionally, nationally and internationally to produce graduates with the necessary knowledge, skills and experience to work as public health nutritionists in health, education, government and non-government departments. This programme of study takes the graduate through applied sciences and professional subjects, resulting in experience as a public health practitioner. It is designed for graduates with an interest in people, health and nutrition.
The main aim of the programme is to foster the development of public health practitioners who will be equipped to advocate better health through diet and nutrition. The programme delivery is supported, in part, by local/external practitioners, which ensures the practitioner-based focus is established, relevant to health and community environments.
Features:
This one-year full-time (or two to six years part-time) course of study is based at the Chester campus, in the Faculty of Applied and Health Sciences, and is delivered by the Department of Biological Sciences. The University of Chester offers you an attractive and friendly environment in which to study, within ten minutes' walk of the city centre. The postgraduate programmes in Public Health Nutrition are the only such courses in the North West of England and the programmes are delivered within a research-driven, student-centred framework. Students have access to excellent facilities and laboratories, including a newly built Nutrition Skills Laboratory as a dedicated resource.
Programme Structure:
The one-year Master of Science programme is delivered across two semesters and comprises taught modules (leading to a Postgraduate Diploma), followed by a research dissertation. A Postgraduate Certificate is available for candidates wishing to study part time for the purposes of continuing professional development. The programme involves nutrition laboratory work, investigative sessions, workshops and seminars, and focuses strongly on the research evidence on which public health nutrition is based.
Core Topics:
- Evidence Based Nutrition
- Food and Nutrition for Health
- Nutritional Science
- Sociology and Psychology and Public Health
- Developing Healthier Communities
The programme is supported by a series of Professional and Research Seminars to assist candidates with integration of subjects, and to develop both professional and research awareness and assist career development.
Dissertation
Candidates pursuing the full Masters award are required to present a research project, which is expected to be of publishable quality and of interest to the scientific world. Many of the research projects are undertaken with research-active staff within the Department of Clinical Sciences and in collaboration with Public Health Departments and Primary Care Trusts.
International public health nutrition projects can be undertaken and recent examples include projects in Sierra Leone and Ghana.
Assessment of modules is varied, and is comprised of a combination of coursework and examination. Coursework assessment is innovative and interactive, and includes interpretation of data, portfolio work and seminar presentation.
Career opportunities
Employability of graduates in public health nutrition is high since there is a shortage of people skilled in this area of specialist knowledge to meet the needs of public health departments and primary care trusts. Graduates also find employment as nutrition scientists, in food advocacy areas and in community development positions. This new career pathway offers the graduate an opportunity to become involved in exciting new fields of work.
Student Profile - Luke Daley
Luke Daley is a Band 5 Public Health Nutritionist working for NHS Nottinghamshire county health partnerships. His job involves co-ordinating 3 areas of Nottinghamshire (Mansfield, Gedling and Rushcliffe). His job has involved setting up and booking people in to deliver cooking courses, one off talks on Eat well Plate i.e obesity, anorexia, weaning, cooking on a budget! All the things he learnt on his postgraduate programme at the University of Chester. Luke has also delivered workshops to primary and secondary schools and delivers training sessions to health care staff.
Luke recently studied the MSc in Public Health Nutrition at the University of Chester. Luke says: The public health nutrition masters enabled me to greatly improve my Nutrition knowledge and how to apply the theory in community work practice. The Evidence based nutrition module - taught me a deep understanding of journals and how to critically analyse literature and harness the relevant details from journals and other articles. The Food and nutrition for health module gave me the confidence to deal with food and the diversity of food available for different diets. The Nutrition science module gave me a good depth of knowledge into nutritional biochemistry and how macro and micro vitamins work on a cellular level, which I now use in training for health care professionals.
Studying sociology and psychology and public health helped me understand in more detail mental and social wellbeing issues people have with food, which can lead to co-morbidities such as obesity and anorexia. It also taught me about current behaviour modification techniques and how to approach change behaviour. Finally, the developing healthier communities module focussed on effective team work and through developing a project proposal for funding on a topical issue, a live assessment involving designing, delivering and evaluating an interactive educational topic for community group really enabled the theory practice gap to be filed. The module encourages reflection and coupled with professional development seminars across the programme made me focus on what skills I was learning and what I could do by way of reflection.
One area of group work coursework for this module involved the topic of fish sustainability and how over fishing is affecting UK fish populations, these messages I now use in my job role and teach children about to prevent new generations from choosing fish that aren't suitable for the future and showing them which fish are. Being assessed on our ability to measure peoples BMI (Chester now leads a Service User project to do this with real people) and take diet histories from individuals as a competency have all been valuable skills which I use in my current role.
I had a good time studying the programme and made a lot of friends. Chester is a great place to study, the staff are approachable and know the field and I would recommend the programme to anyone who wants to develop a career in this field.
Applications are invited from science graduates with a good first science degree (minimum of lower second class honours or equivalent) grounded in physiology, biochemistry, food, nutrition, biological or health sciences. Original certificates and a transcript of modules studied with marks should be presented with the application. Applications from those without a science degree, who have an interest and experience of working in related areas, will be considered.
