postgraduate study in Public Health
Academic leadership: LSHTM
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is the University of London's major resource for postgraduate teaching and research in public health and tropical medicine, as well as the leading postgraduate medical institution in these subjects in Europe. It has an international standing with a staff that has unique multidisciplinary and international experience.
This course has been designed by staff within the Department of Public Health and Policy. This Department, which has a staff of about 150, carries out research in environmental factors and health, health policy, health promotion, and health services. The disciplines represented include medicine, epidemiology, nursing, pharmacy, statistics, operational research, history, economics, sociology, psychology and anthropology. In addition to the main activities in research and teaching, staff in the Department provide advice, consultancy and information on a wide range of public health and health care policy issues.
Course Director
Ros Plowman
RGN BA MSc PhD
Rosalind Plowman originally trained as a nurse following which she worked in a variety of clinical settings. She then studied for a BA in Human Sciences at Oxford University and an MSc in Health Planning and Financing at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics. On completion of her MSc she was appointed project co-ordinator of a study which assessed the economic burden of hospital acquired infections and this became the basis of her PhD thesis which focused on the economic burden of infections occurring in surgical patients. Rosalind’s research interests include the economics of infection and the costs and benefits of selected infection control activities. Rosalind became involved with the LSHTM distance-learning programme in November 2001 and is currently the Course Director for the Public Health distance learning course.
Deputy Course Director
Cathy Zimmerman
BA MA MSc PhD
Cathy Zimmerman is a senior staff member of the Gender, Violence & Health Centre, which is part of the Social and Mathematical Epidemiology group (SaME) at LSHTM. She specialises in migration and health and conducted the first multi-country survey on women in post-trafficking service settings in Europe, in addition to multi-site research on female asylum-seekers, violence and health in Europe. She is a co-author of the WHO Ethical and Safety Recommendations for Interviewing Trafficked Women and a co-editor of Caring for trafficked persons. Guidance for Healthcare Providers. Dr. Zimmerman has worked with LSHTM’s Public Health Distance Learning course since its launch in 2005. She lectures at LSHTM on ethics, gender and health, and social epidemiology, and supervises Ph.D. and Masters Degree students. Previously, she lived and worked in Cambodia, where she founded a local non-governmental organisation against domestic violence and carried out qualitative and quantitative research on partner violence.
For further information about the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine please refer to the LSHTM website (external link)