Eligibility criteria Medical Graduates (MBBS), Dental Graduates (BDS), BHMS, BAMS, BUMS, BSMS graduates, Graduates in Veterinary Sciences (BVSc), BSc (Nursing), BSc (MLT), B. Pharm, BPT, B. Tech/B.E, LLB (5-year) as well as post-graduates in any other streams will be eligible for admission.
However only those with degrees and post-graduate degrees recognized by Kerala University for Health Sciences (for medical graduates) or Kerala University (for other degrees) will be considered for the MPH program.
No degrees earned through a correspondence course will be considered as eligibility for seeking admission to the course.
For candidates with professional degrees (MBBS, BDS, BHMS, BAMS, BUMS, B.VSc, B. Pharm, B.Sc(Nurs), BSc(MLT), B.Tech/B.E, LLB, BPT)minimum pass (obtaining 50% marks) of the course will be required to become eligible to apply for the course. For others (post-graduates in other streams), they should have obtained minimum fifty percent marks in their post-graduate examination to be eligible to apply for MPH program
For candidates from states other than Kerala and outside India, the same regulations will apply as above and the Kerala Health University will ascertain the equivalency of their qualifications before they are registered as bonafide students for the program
Admission process
The selection of the eligible candidates for admission to MPH program shall be done by the individual affiliated institutions
Only those candidates who clear the minimum eligibility criteria as mentioned in 4.1.5 will be called for a written test and an interview. The minimum criteria as in 4.1.5 will be an essential screening criterion; but will not be counted for the final selection
The final rank list will be prepared based on the marks obtained in written test and the interview (in the ratio 80:20 for written test and interview) conducted by the institution, under observation of KUHS
Registration
Candidates selected for admission to MPH program by any affiliating institute/college will be required to register themselves as bonafide students with the University as per regulations within the time period specified by the university.
If the students are not found to be eligible as per University norms, their admission will not be considered and they will not get registered with the University
It is the responsibility of the affiliating college to ensure that the candidates they select are eligible as per University norms explained above. For international candidates, the institutions are advised to ensure equivalency of the degrees of the applying candidates well in advance
Migration and transfer
Migration and transfer will not be permitted for MPH candidates
Readmission
Readmission is permissible if the candidate rejoins within a period of maximum three years after a break in the course
Attendance
The institutions should maintain attendance register of all students and should compile the attendance details before the University examinations
A student shall be allowed to appear final university examinations only if he/she has at least 75% attendance for all the subjects together and at-least 75% combined attendance for all component subjects under each paper he/she is appearing in that particular year

The training period is of two years for the Masters in Public Health (MPH) program- divided into two academic calendar years with University exams at the end of Year 1 and Year 2 However, a student who is unable to complete the program successfully in two years, shall have to complete it in no more than 3 years in order to get a degree from University The MPH program shall employ the following mixed methods for individual subjects- Lecture classes, Field trainings, assignments, Seminars and presentations, Workshops, Projects. In addition, a dissertation will assess the comprehensive understanding and skill-sets of students .
Modular teaching will be followed and the subjects are distributed across the two years as follows

Year One	Year Two
1. Concepts and principles of public health	1. Intermediate Epidemiology
2. Introduction to Basic medical sciences	2. Infectious Disease Epidemiology
3. Introduction to Epidemiology	3. Chronic Disease Epidemiology
4. Basic Biostatistics	4. Health Policy and Policy analysis
5. Health and Development	5. Health Economics and health care financing
6. Health and Environment including Occupational health	6. Intermediate Biostatistics and Health Informatics
7. Health Systems and Health systems research
8. Quantitative Research Methods
9. Qualitative Research Methods
10. Ethics in Public Health and research
11. Health Management including communication
12. Health equity including gender issues
13. Social and anthropological Perspectives in Health

The MPH program will be an 80 credits course. Of these, 20 credits are for the dissertation and rest 60 for the other papers at the institute/centre. The distribution of credits for the courses is summarized below.
One Credit equals to 15 hours of contact between student and teacher, directly or in-directly and this include lectures, seminars, field trainings, visits, group discussions etc.

Courses	Credits	Total Hours
Concepts and principles of Public health	1	15
Introduction to Basic medical sciences	2	30
Introduction to Epidemiology	4	60
Basic Biostatistics	4	60
Ethics in Public Health and research	2	30
Health and Development	2	30
Quantitative Research Methods	3	45
Qualitative Research Methods	3	45
Health Management and communication	5	75
Health equity including gender issues	2	30
Social and anthropological Perspectives in Health	2	30
Infectious Disease Epidemiology	4	60
Health and Environment including occupational health	3	45
Health Policy and policy analysis	4	60
Health Systems and health systems research	4	60
Health Economics and health care financing	4	60
ntermediate Biostatistics and Health Informatics	4	60
Intermediate Epidemiology	4	60
Chronic Disease Epidemiology	3	45
Dissertation	20	300
Total	80	1200

A research project and dissertation is compulsory for the students of Master of Public Health to provide the students an opportunity to plan and design a study, prepare research tools, collect data in the field, analyse the data and write up the research under the guidance of a faculty as soon as the completion of core courses in the first semester.

As soon as the first six months are over, the student should think of some ideas for the research and start working on it. On the basis of these ideas each student should present two topics before the faculty and other students in the third week of 7th month (year 1) in academic calendar. In this presentation the faculty as a group will consider the relevance of the topic and feasibility to undertake the study. This feasibility will be explored when the student goes for the term break and field posting at the end of first year of the course

After the exploration of feasibility and discussion with the stakeholders formal presentation of the selected one topic out of the two topics presented initially will be presented in the third week of 1st month of academic year 2. After this presentation a guide and a Co-guide will be allocated to the student based on the research topic. In the third presentation, which will be scheduled in the first week of 4th month a literature review, objectives and methodology of the proposal will be presented as a draft protocol. Feedback will be given to this presentation by the faculty and students. Appropriate modifications will be incorporated in the literature review, objectives and methodology and these three chapters will be submitted to the guide.

Fourth presentation will be in the first week of month 6 (year 2), with all the above in brief and research tools and consent forms in detail. Suggestions from faculty and students should be incorporated and the final protocol will be submitted to the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the institute /Institutional Research Committee (IRC) in the second week of 6th month. Comments from the TAC/IRC will have to be incorporated into the proposal before submitting for the Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) clearance. A certificate from TAC/IRC is mandatory for submission to the IEC. Detailed procedure for the submission to IEC will be communicated to the students.

Technical clearance of the research proposal
The TAC/IRC will ensure the scientific soundness of a proposed research and acts as the first level of filter to safeguard against unscientific studies. The concern of the TAC/IRC shall be mainly directed towards scientific soundness and technical feasibility.

Ethical clearance of the research proposal
After getting clearance from TAC/IRC the proposal must submitted to IEC, for ethical clearance

Letter of approval from academic section
Students must obtain a letter of approval from the Institute, which is a pre-requisite to proceed for fieldwork. A letter of recommendation from the guide concerned with the project title, one page summary of the proposal, and letter of clearance from IEC should be submitted to the academic division for the same.

Data collection and data entry
Students’ fieldwork is expected to start from 1st day of 8th month and will be for maximum of forty-five days and they are required to report back to the institute by 15th of 9th month. Monitoring of data collection will be through submission of weekly progress report and monthly review meeting either face to face or tele/video/Skype conference. Analysis of data and discussions with guide will happen concurrently and the thesis writing will start by 10th month.

Final presentation
This presentation will include detailed analysis, major findings and conclusions of the study. This will be in the third week of 10th month. The feedback of the faculty and the students should be incorporated and the final form of the dissertation should be submitted to the academic division on or before the last working day of 10th month.

Evaluation of dissertation
The dissertation is earmarked 25 percent of the total credits (20 credits) of the MPH programme. Continuous internal assessment will be done including a final open defense after data collection and report writing is concluded. The university assessment will consist of thesis evaluation (blinded) by two external examiners and the average of the grade given by two examiners will be taken as the final grade. The minimum for pass in dissertation is a B minus grade (B-)

Re-evaluation of dissertation
In case of failure in dissertation, the comments of the external examiners should be incorporated in consultation with the guide and the dissertation resubmitted within a period of 6 months after the declaration of results along with the required fee.

Essentialities to qualify for examination
A student should have registered with the University and paid all dues including the course fees and examination fees.

Internal assessment
The institutions/teachers can conduct internal assessment for each subject on a continuous basis. They may employ varying methods like (but not limited to), written exams, assignments, group works, seminars, presentations, field report etc.

Eligibility to appear for examination
A student shall be allowed to appear for final university examinations only if he/she has at least 75% attendance for all the subjects together and at-least 75% combined attendance for all component subjects under each paper he/she is appearing in that particular year

A student shall be allowed to appear for final university examinations only if he/she has at least 40% combined internal assessment marks for all component subjects under each paper he/she is appearing in that particular year

University examination
There will be University exams at the end of Year 1 and Year 2. Supplementary exams will be conducted within by six months after the main examinations

There shall be three main components in University evaluation- written theory exam and Viva for all papers, and Dissertation.

Theory
There will be three theory papers in Year 1 and two in Year 2. Each paper will have two sections, as detailed in the table, next page, of three hours duration each

The setting of questions and evaluation of the answer papers containing basic medical sciences will be undertaken by a faculty with MBBS and MPH/MD (ie Medical faculty). All other question papers will be set and answer sheets evaluated by faculty of public health (medical or non-medical) or community medicine

Viva
Viva will be part of evaluation for both the years for all the papers. Viva may include questions related to the project conducted by the student as well as field postings and theory sections. A panel with at-least one external examiner will conduct the viva.

Year One - Paper One
Section A Concepts and principles of public health
Introduction to Basic medical sciences Health Systems including health systems research

Section B
Health and Development Health and Environment including occupational health

Year One - Paper Two
Section A
Introduction to Epidemiology Basic Biostatistics

Section B
Quantitative Research Methods Qualitative Research Methods

Year One - Paper Three
Section A
Health Management and communication Ethics in Public Health and research

Section B
Health equity including gender issues Social and anthropological Perspectives in Health

Year Two - Paper One
Section A
Intermediate Epidemiology Intermediate Biostatistics and Health Informatics

Section B
Chronic Disease Epidemiology Infectious Disease Epidemiology

Year Two - Paper Two
Section A
Health Policy

Section B
Health Economics and health care financing

Criteria for pass
A candidate shall be eligible for the award of Master of Public Health if the student has cleared all papers in both the years with a minimum 40% marks (grade of C or above), except Dissertation, which requires minimum 60% marks (B minus grade) to be declared as passed

If a student fails in any of the three papers in Year 1, he/she will get a chance to write the paper (supplementary) within 6 months of the regular examination.

Only if the student clears all the papers in year 1- either in first chance (regular examination) or through the supplementary, his/her dissertation will be considered for external evaluation and final defense and he/she will become eligible to write the University exams at the end of year 2

Declaration of Grade
Percentage system will be followed for grading as per University norms. However a letter grading system shall also be applied for conversion of the grades from the percentage system in India for the convenience of the students and prospective employers/ institutions of higher learning, as in table below.

The total marks for year 1 and year 2 including that of Dissertation will be considered in finally deciding the over-all grade and percentage. 80.0 percent and above is considered as First class with distinction, 65.0 to 79.9 is considered as First class, 55.0 to 64.9 as Second class and 40.0 to 54.9 as third class. Grade D (less than 40% marks) is considered as failure.

Percentage	Letter Grade
85.0and above	A+
84.9 to 80.0	A
79.9 to 75.0	A-
74.9 to 70.0	B+
69.9 to 65.0	B
64.9 to 60.0	B-
59.9 to 40.0	C
Less than 40.0	D

Distribution of marks
The marks will be distributed between theory (internals and university), viva and dissertation as follows

There will be a mandatory 2-weeks residential posting in the year 1 end. During this 2-week, students will be working closely with a community/health centre/NGO in undertaking fieldwork.

An internship for two months is mandatory at the end of year 2. The internship will not form part of the evaluations or in the grading. However without submission of internship certificate through the institute, the University will not issue degree certificate

One credit hour corresponds to approximately 15 hours of active teaching & learning process between the faculty and the student. The following details all the core subjects for the MPH programme

Concepts and principles of pubic health
1. This module is aimed at sensitizing and orienting public health students to basic understanding of public health
2. The module will cover Introduction, History, Definitions & General Concepts in Public Health
3. Evolution of Contemporary Public Health, Contemporary Views on the Definition, Role, Principles, Core Activities and Components of Public Health, core principles, core competency areas in public health

Introduction to basic medical sciences
1. This module is aimed at sensitizing and orienting public health students to basic understanding of medical sciences.
2. Human Biology: Structure and Function of Cell, Recapitulation of Basic human biology- Circulatory or Cardiovascular System, Digestive or
Gastrointestinal System, Endocrine or Glandular or Hormonal System includes all of the glands in the body, Nervous System Reproductive System, Respiratory or Pulmonary System
3. Public Health Microbiology –Introduction to Bacteria, Virus, Fungus, Protozoans & other parasites, Microscopy, Introduction to a microbiology laboratory, Diseases caused by microbes, Pathogenicity of Microorganisms, Human Diseases Caused by Viruses, Human Diseases Caused by Bacteria, Human Diseases Caused by Fungi and Protozoa
4. Host Immune system and vaccines -Innate immunity, Specific Immunity, Vaccines- types, developing immunity, Delivery system, Effectiveness
5. Antimicrobials - General Characteristics of Antimicrobial Drugs, Mechanisms of Action of Antimicrobial Agents, Drug Resistance, Clinical Microbiology- Culture, Antigen-Antibody detection Test, Nucleic Acid Amplification Test

Health Systems and health systems research
1. Concepts relating to health systems such as coverage, financing, quality of care, regulation, insurance etc; building blocks of health systems; health systems frameworks
2. The principles and pattern of various healthcare systems in the world with emphasis to the evolution of various health system models ; Introduction of different types of health systems existing in the world, their merits and demerits
3. Alma Ata and Primary Health Care; Organization of healthcare units at national, state, district and village level;
4. Healthcare scenario in India; Evolution of Indian healthcare system and the major Committee Reports, various organized (public and private) healthcare infrastructures in India;
5. Major national health programs like National Health Mission (NHM), Revised National Tuberculosis Program (RNTCP), National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), National Mental Health Program (NMHP) etc ;
6. Principles and practice of health systems research; Introduction to Health Policy and systems reseacrh

Health and Development
1. Social determinants of health and inter linkages between health and development at local, national and global levels and be able to apply that in health program planning.
2. Introduce the concepts and indicators of development, globalization, urbanization and poverty and be able to apply Health Impact Assessment (HIA) as a methodology to assess the impact of development policies on health’
3. To familiarize the concepts of health equity and various sources of inequalities in health and the policy and program approaches to promote health equity and make health services accessible to the poor

Health and Environment including occupational health
1. Environmental determinants of human and ecosystem health
2. Basic concepts of environmental health sciences and key environmental health issues with a global and national perspective
3. Water, air , soil and other environmental quality monitoring
4. Develop approaches for assessment, prevention and control of environmental (pollution)
5. Occupational health issues- Introduction & General Concepts; Health Problems in Important Occupations, Industrial accidents and toxicology
6. General Measures of Prevention & Control of Occupational Diseases, Ergonomics, physical working environment, social security and labor laws,

Introduction to Epidemiology
1. The fundamentals: The subject and methods of Epidemiology
2. Epidemiological approaches: measurement, comparison, and inference, as well as the different roles of epidemiology in description of a situation, looking for trends over time, exploring associations, predicting outcomes, investigating epidemics, and establishing causal links in disease occurrence;
3. Epidemiological study design, and basic concepts such as reliability, validity, bias, and confounding; and
4. Basic software for epidemiological data analysis such as EPI-INFO and EPI-DATA

Basic Biostatistics
1. The fundamentals: The concepts of statistics, principles of statistical data analysis and interpretation of findings.
2. Review of essential mathematics, demographic rates and ratios, methods to summarize data-Tabulation, graphical presentation of data.
3. Measures of central location-Symmetry and Skewness of distributions-Measures of spread-Transforming variables
4. Introduction to probability-Probability distributions
5. Introduction to statistical inference-Introduction to simple random sampling-Sampling distributions-Standard error-Standard normal distribution
6. Confidence intervals-Hypothesis testing- One-sample tests-Two sample tests for means and proportions-
7. Vital statistics and demography

Quantitative Research Methods
1. Literature review including various style of referencing, method of reviewing literature and how this has to be reproduced in the dissertation or a research paper with appropriate citation
2. Choosing a research topic in general and specifically for the MPH dissertation, framing research questions and objectives of the study
3. Identification of variables, defining each variable and operationalizing them
4. Various study designs including cross sectional, case control and cohort
5. Different methods of data collection; questionnaire method, interview schedules, and some physical measurements like weight, height, waist circumference
6. Organizational aspects of field survey, logistics of field survey organization, training of staff transportation etc
7. Sample size estimation, sample selection procedures, sample frame
8. Development of a questionnaire and interview schedule and the difference between the two
9. Pilot testing of instrument, time taken for one schedule or one set of questionnaire administration, language barrier, sensitivity of questions, feasibility of getting response etc
10. Importance of translation and back translation of the instrument
11. Scales of measurement, reliability and validity and the difference between the two
12. Organization of data sheets, manual checking of data sheets, grouping them, storage and transportation.
13. Data entry using excel and SPSS, data cleaning.
14. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis
15. Quantitative Research Methods in Health Economics and Policy Research
16. Writing a research report with executive summary and a research article for scientific journal with an abstract.

Qualitative Research Methods
1. Introduction: Introduction to the relevance of qualitative methods in public health research, the anthropologist’s worldview, and the various methods available,
2. Applications: Ethnographic interviews, observations (participant and non-participant), group interviews and discussions, other methods less used such as case studies, pile sorts, ethno-physiological representations, etc.
3. Analysis: Translation and transcription, coding, thematic linking and introduction to computer based qualitative data analysis. Ethical issues in qualitative research in public health – issues relating to appropriateness of method, its use, analysis and reporting
Health Management and communication
1. Introduction to Management and Communication: Basics of program and project management
2. Human Resource Management: Performance appraisal, Staffing, Metrics, Time management, Negotiation, Management in Human Resources
3. Organization and Management: Organization Assessment, Management of Organization Change, Managerial Problem analysis and decision-making, Decision analysis, Conflict Management, Stress management
4. Financial Management : Financial Management Foundations, Management Accounting in Healthcare, Budget analysis, Balance Sheet, Financial analysis, Analysis of audited financial statements, Cash flow, Financial procedure.
5. Health communication: Components of communication process, Information education communication, Behaviour change communication, barriers in communication, Planning, Implementation and Evaluation of Health Education Programmes
6. Quality of Care and accreditation
7. Program and project Management
8. MIS in Healthcare, Computers in Health Administration, Database principles and design for health application, Health Informatics and Management, Decision Support System and Field Training.

Ethics in Public Health and research
1. Concepts and principles of bioethics: Principles, Informed consent, privacy and confidentiality
2. Ethics in Research: Ethics of clinical trials and intervention, Conflict of interest and integrity in research
3. Ethical review processes: Ethical review committees-roles and responsibilities, managing conflict of interest in review processes, Evaluation of risk and benefit in research.
4. Ethical issues in resource allocation: setting priorities and the ethics of selecting criteria for setting priorities – efficiency vs equity, benchmarks of fairness, other criteria used for prioritising, etc
5. Ethical issues in programme management: issues of governance of public health programmes, surveillance and monitoring and evaluation, ethical issues in the management of chronic and infectious diseases management, particularly with reference to epidemics (quarantine/isolation issues), etc
6. Ethical issues in disaster management: manmade and natural disasters, ethics of triaging, ethics of surveillance in disaster situation, etc
7. Professional ethics for Public health practitioners: Developing empathy, resolving conflicts and building consensus, conflict of interest, issues of integrity, transparency and accountability, communication skills, etc

Health equity including gender issues
1. Health in special situations: health in conflict areas, war zones, calamities, natural disasters
2. Marginalised communities and health equity: socially and economically vulnerable groups
3. Gender in public health research; tools for gender analysis
4. Gender perspectives in specific health conditions, such as reproductive health, communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases etc, gender analysis of Health Policies and Programmes

Social and Anthropological Perspectives in Health
1. Principles of Sociology in Health Care; family health history & individual medico - social history taking; Role of family in health and disease
2. Assessment of socio economic status, social class, SES scales
3. Medical Anthropology for Public Health Research, Anthropology of health systems
4. Focused Health Ethnographies: Examination of the use anthropological approaches to the study of selected issues such as non-communicable diseases, communicable diseases, reproductive health, etc

Intermediate Epidemiology
1. Epidemiological data, issues of quality; The data collection process- reliability, validity, sampling and other issues, Deductive and inductive reasoning
2. Approaches to epidemiological data analysis- description, exploration, and hypothesis testing, Crude and stratified rates including Mantel Haentzel estimate
3. Model building in epidemiology- linear and logistic regression, Confounding, Mediation, Effect Modification.
4. Disease surveillance and screening

Intermediate Biostatistics and Health Informatics
1. Statistical Methods: Review of Hypothesis tests and confidence intervals; For Means and Proportions-Chi-square test for contingency tables-Fishers exact test-Chi-square test for trend; F test for variances-One-way ANOVA; Correlation, Simple Linear Regression and Logistic regression
2. Introduction to multivariate analysis- Multiple linear regression-Multiple logistic regression
3. Introduction to Non-parametric tests-One-sample tests-Two sample tests.
4. Introduction to Survival data analysis-Censored data-Kaplan Meir Curves.
5. Ethical issues in data management and statistical analysis.
6. Introduction to Health informatics and HMIS

Chronic Disease Epidemiology
1. Health Transition, difference between NCDs and communicable diseases, Major driving forces of NCDs including underlying determinants, make a case for the need for epidemiology of NCDs for policy and program 2. Data analysis based on current NCD data globally and regionally
3. NCD Risk factor surveillance, identify major common risk factors for NCD at global and regional level, relevance of NCD risk factor
surveillance, outline the WHO STEPs approach to surveillance of NCD risk factors
4. Quality and measurement issues of NCD data, major sources of NCD data, key measurement issues in collecting analyzing and interpreting data and limitations of population level data
5. Standard operating procedures for physical and biological measurements, understand the importance of clear protocols and guidelines, importance of training and supervision to reduce inter-observer variation, sources of bias and errors in measurements
6. Risk factor modification, provide evidence for the NCD risk factor reduction at population level, global strategies like FCTC and strategy on diet and physical activity, key success stories from developed and developing countries
7. Strategies for prevention, different levels of prevention (primordial, primary, secondary and tertiary) in NCDs, Population approach versus high risk approach
8. Stepwise framework for prevention, cost effective interventions at primary, secondary and tertiary health care levels
9. Estimation of the burden of diseases due to NCDs, impact of presenting NCD data in terms of DALYs and deaths, interpret estimates of deaths and DALYs at country level for advocacy for NCDs, calculate the number of premature deaths that could be prevented
10. Partnerships in NCD prevention and control, identify key partners and stakeholders, different roles of partners, potential for partnerships

Infectious Disease Epidemiology
1. Introduction of common terms used in infectious disease epidemiology; epidemiolocal triad; sources and reservoir of infections; routes of transmission and ecology of infectious agents in the community; immune response of human body to infectious agents; patho-physiology and manifestation of infections in human body;
2. Common laboratory diagnostic modalities used in infectious disease epidemiology;
3. Epidemiology of infectious diseases of public health importance;
4. Steps in the investigation of an outbreak; disease surveillance and bio-terrorism,
5. Public health vaccines and issues with vaccine efficiency.

Health Policy and policy analysis
1. Logic and process of public policy-making in health
2. Preliminary analysis of health policy issues and decisions based on this understanding
3. Introduction to some analytical tools such as policy relevant epidemiology, economic analysis, decision analysis, qualitative methods and log-frame analysis used in policy studies
4. Legislations in health and Health Sector Reforms
5. Decentralization in the health sector and decentralised planning
6. Public Private interactions in Health
7. Evaluation of health programs

Health Economics and health care financing
1. Basic conceptual tools and theoretical ideas of economics
2. Demand for health, supply of health & health care, costs, cost-effectiveness
3. Health Financing Reforms; Universal Health Coverage
4. Health Insurance: Current schemes and alternative proposals, Community based health insurance
5. Markets, market imperfections and failure.