Diligence Research in the Identification

¶ … diligence research in the identification of a potential MPH program that enable my career goals and interest has brought me to the UB-MPH program. My primary career goal and interest is to develop prevention strategies for STI/HIV in ethnically-diverse and under-educated communities. The MPH program will assist me to achieve this goal by immersion into epidemiology and the 12-week practicum that enables field work experience. The secondary goal is to provide scientific knowledge applicable to improving the environmental conditions and health status of populations experiencing the greatest disparities and deficiencies in health potential. For example, gender support and impact of STI/HIV on mother-child health. The school offers coursework in qualitative methods in health research design to enable programs aimed at assisting these under-served populations.

Additionally, the leadership and expertise of the faculty at UBC School of Public Health is second-to-none. The current MPH faculty does perform research that directly correlates to my interest and future goals. Such goals include establishing screening programs for gynecological cancers in resource-challenged settings and setting priorities in health policy for underdeveloped countries, and researching issues causal to infectious diseases prevention. Additionally, the program offers a unique match to my particular volunteer experience and educational background as well as research interests. Indeed, the core coursework provides a strong foundation in the study of epidemiology, which is imperative to the successful completion of self-directed goals. Analysis into the issues and concepts in Public Health coupled with the Leadership in Public Health, Control of Communicable Disease and additional elective coursework is critical to understanding policy issues and to collaborating among peers toward facilitating successful outcomes and measurement.

My experience of working in resource challenged settings has shaped my goals. Thus, stemming from an interest to solve health problems that span populations, research into the restructuring of basic health policies in underdeveloped countries is mandatory to enable a positive effect on global health. I feel my ambitions are inline with the program when I say that appropriating resources for primary prevention to subdue the vicious cycle of poverty and disease is the most effective way to improve the health of the developing world. This is to comprise my specific interest in the UBC -- School of Public Health MPH program.

This intense challenge is what draws me to research the priorities of health policies in underdeveloped nations. The School of Public Health provides mastery in the skills necessary to analyze and address critical and endemic health issues and its determinants. Indeed, the importance of mastery in epidemiology and community-based health-outcomes research techniques is critical to achieving improvements in outcomes measurement. Research skills obtained through intensive coursework is specific to career goals that engage and improve diverse under-served populations.

The program provides exceptional preparation using an interdisciplinary methodology. A function of effective public health field research includes demanding statistical and epidemiological coursework; aimed to provide the scientific knowledge applicable to improving the environmental conditions and health status of populations experiencing the greatest disparities and deficiencies in health potential. The training opportunities available in the program provide tremendous preparation to venture into the field and perform community-based studies to improve environmental conditions and health-outcomes for the most vulnerable. This is to include women and children living in poverty, aboriginal and indigenous populations, and the undereducated and marginalized.

Diligent and intelligent, the program will equip me with the skill-set to addressing critical issues common to this demographic. Specific areas of focus include addressing the lack of supportive health policies, sub-optimal or dysfunctional health services, insufficient human and material resources, global environmental and climate change and a lack of control over decisions directly affecting health and social well-being. Research carried out at UBC is cross-disciplinary in nature and serves to identify priority health issues, their determinants and appropriate, applicable solutions. Further interest in the UBC MPH program does stem from an alignment in similar faculty interests in researching optimal methods and techniques to curb preventable infectious illnesses.