About the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health

The Department of Epidemiology and Public Health is involved in teaching and research with a national and international dimension.

Teaching at the Department

The Department teaches courses in epidemiology and public health for students of General Medicine and also for non-medical health care degrees at the Faculty of Medicine. It coordinates undergraduate teaching of degrees in the Faculty’s Public Health degree programme, whose graduates are qualified to work as public health professionals.

The Public Health degree programme

The Public Health degree programme consists of a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree.

Bachelor’s degree: Public Health, full-time studies, standard duration 3 years

This degree focuses primarily on prevention of illness and disease and the protection and promotion of public health. It is an interdisciplinary degree which provides students with essential medical knowledge, combined with skills and knowledge enabling them to assess environmental and occupational factors affecting quality of life and human health. Students are trained in the methodology of public health monitoring by public authorities, occupational health techniques, and epidemiology (for both infectious and non-infectious diseases, including epidemiological methodology and basic biostatistics). Graduates are qualified to work as public health assistants at regional and local public health authorities throughout the Czech Republic, in all fields of public health and epidemiology. They are also equipped to work in public-sector and private-sector consulting organizations and to provide occupational health care in companies and other organizations.

Master’s degree: Public Health Professional, full-time studies, standard duration 2 years

This degree builds on and expands the knowledge and skills acquired as part of the Bachelor degree in Public Health. It equips students with the necessary theoretical knowledge and practical skills enabling them to work in a broad range of positions in public-sector health monitoring systems, including monitoring of compliance with public health legislation. Graduates are qualified to work as public health professionals in regional public health authorities; at specialist institutions in the fields of occupational physiology, toxicology or occupational psychology; at occupational medicine and occupational health departments; in public-sector environmental health and occupational health monitoring institutions; for various industrial and non-industrial companies and organizations (in departments working with occupational health-related issues); in industrial process management and industrial design (ergonomic requirements); and in research and consultancy organizations specializing in environmental and occupational health.

The Department also offers two doctoral degrees.

Doctoral degree: Public Health, full-time studies/part-time studies, standard duration 4 years

This degree equips students with broad-based theoretical knowledge in the field of public health and epidemiological methodology in research work. Graduates are equipped to conduct population surveys in the form of epidemiological studies investigating the influence of lifestyle factors and environmental/occupational conditions on the human organism, including theoretical knowledge and practical skills involving methods of minimizing the negative effects of these factors. Graduates are able to devise and implement public health programmes – including prevention-based programmes. Graduates are equipped with the necessary tools to conduct independent research work.

Doctoral degree: Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, full-time studies/part-time studies, standard duration 4 years

Updated: 30. 01. 2018