Background of the Program

Public Health is “the science and art of disease prevention, prolonging life, and promoting health and well-being through organized community effort for the sanitation of the environment, the control of communicable infections, the organization of medical and nursing services for the early diagnosis and prevention of disease, the education of the individual in personal health and the development of the social machinery to assure everyone a standard of living adequate for the maintenance or improvement of health.” (Winslow, 1920).Public health is the combination of sciences, skills, and beliefs that is directed to the maintenance and improvement of the health of all the people through collective or social actions. Public health is thus a social institution, a discipline, and a practice. Although public health has a set of general theories, principles and strategies that is applied universally, the need for fine-tuning the application of these elements into specific, local contexts is mandatory. The ruling principle of public health is to deal with the health of the population in its totality. Health interventions on the population level include community hygiene, sanitation, health education, immunization, and promotion of nutrition. Public health covers preventive, curative, and rehabilitative actions. The success of public health depends on adhering to the basic rules of equity, partnerships, and social justice, as well as the mobilization of local, national, and international resources (encyclopedia of public health, 2008). Both the adaptation and the application of these principles necessitate well-trained and well-equipped public health experts. In Ethiopia, the existing situation of the country clearly show that a large number of public health professionals, at all levels, are required if mid- and long-term national health goals are to be met. In particular, conducting training in proximity to communities to be served is getting greater attention by all concernedbodies.

In addition, particularly in developing countries and low-resource settings, challenges posed by a high burden of health problems, increasing populations, and global economic crises must be responded by strengthening health service delivery through organized public health systems. Again, this can be accomplished effectively and efficiently only if sufficiently skilled human resources exists who able to think globally and act by applying evidence- based public health. Higher learning institutions, such as private colleges, should therefore design and conduct unique & advanced public health programs to produce these needed public health professionals. In Ethiopia, at the writing of this document, only ten of the 31 public private colleges offer MPH programs. Then, the establishment and maintenance of key partnerships between Ethiopian Government and international institutions seems to be an effective strategy to attract the needed resources and experiences to the Ethiopian academic setting.

Objective of the Program:

To train high level public health practitioners who are equipped with the theoretical and practical knowledge & skill of public health for problem identification, diagnosis, public health intervention and evaluation of the applied interventions programs or policies.