Overview
Overview
This multidisciplinary course will help you begin your public health career, where you’ll work to achieve better health through the prevention of disease and disability at the community or whole population level, rather than just working with individuals.
You’ll learn about how social, economic and environmental factors affect health and wellbeing, and choose from a broad range of units to begin building your public health career. This includes units focusing on big data and health, epidemiology and biostatistics, healthcare systems in Australia and health promotion planning.
Due to the range of units, this course also acts as a pathway into other health courses with more competitive admission criteria, including pharmacy, speech pathology, physiotherapy or occupational therapy.
Choose your specialisation
There are a number of specialisations available in the third year of this course – units designed to hone your knowlege and skills in a particular area. You can choose to specialise in health data or health sciences, or select an Accelerated Bachelor Master pathway.
Health Data
In this specialisation, you'll learn how to analyse big data to reveal patterns and trends, and learn about data capture, cyber security, data visualisation and how artificial intelligence and machine learning are being used in health. You'll also grow your interpretive and decision-making skills and know how to present your results effectively to different audiences.
Health Sciences
This specialisation lets you combine studies in public health disciplines including health promotion, epidemiology and biostatistics, environmental health, occupational health and safety, and global public health administration with a range of optional units. Career outcomes are diverse and you'll be able to tailor your learning to suit the healthcare career of your choice.
Accelerated Master Degree Pathway
In this pathway you'll complete four units from a master degree in your third year, and continue on with the master degree in your fourth year. The time taken to complete an Accelerated Bachelor Master Degree is 6 months shorter than completing both degrees individually.
Specialisations available in this pathway are:
- Public Health
- Health Administration
- Sexology
- Occupational Health and Safety.
Note: You'll need a course-weighted average of 60 or higher after completing 300 credit points to qualify for this pathway.
What jobs can the Health Sciences course lead to?
Careers
- Administrative officer
- Community development officer
- Data management officer
- Policy officer
- Project officer
- Research officer
Industries
- Health research
- Local and state government
- Non-government organisations
What you'll learn
- apply discipline knowledge, understand its theoretical underpinnings and ways of thinking; extend the boundaries of knowledge through research
- apply logical and rational processes to analyse the components of an issue; think creatively to generate innovative solutions
- decide what information is needed and where it might be found using appropriate technologies; make valid judgements and synthesise information from a range of sources
- communicate in ways appropriate to the discipline, audience and purpose
- use appropriate technologies recognising their advantages and limitations
- use a range of learning strategies; take responsibility for one's own learning and development; sustain intellectual curiosity; know how to continue to learn as a graduate
- think globally and consider issues from a variety of perspectives; apply international standards and practices within a discipline or professional area
- respect individual human rights; recognise the importance of cultural diversity particularly the perspective of Indigenous Australians; value diversity of language
- work independently and in teams; demonstrate leadership, professional behaviour and ethical practices
