Abstract

BackgroundCurrent and emerging challenges to public health in the 21st century are vastly different from those faced in previous centuries. And the shortage of health personnel and their low level of educational qualifications hindered the development of Chinese public health services. In order to fulfill this requirement, the Ministry of Education initiated a full-time, Master of Public Health (MPH) graduate programme in 2009. This study aimed to evaluate the level of graduate students’ satisfaction with full-time Master of Public Health (MPH) education in China, and whether they would apply again for an MPH graduate degree if they had another opportunity to do so, as well as to identify the factors influencing their decision-making process.MethodsAn anonymous, web-based survey questionnaire containing 61 items was distributed to 702 MPH students in 35 universities or colleges. The questions covered the categories of student admission, training goals, lecture courses, practical training, research activities and mentorship. Levels of satisfaction were compared between MPH students who would choose MPH again as their graduate degree if they had another opportunity to do so and those who would not. Key influencing factors of training satisfaction were identified using logistic regression models.ResultsA total of 65.10% of the participants would apply again for MPH education if they had another opportunity to do so. The factors influencing students’ willingness included their university type, the time since admission and their initial willingness. In addition, the four common factors (admissions & lecture courses, research activities & mentorship, practical training and training goals) emerging from factor analysis were all significantly positively correlated with student willingness (p < 0.001).ConclusionsMost MPH students surveyed were highly satisfied with their MPH education and, although they advocated for improvements and reforms in some aspects, they would still choose MPH as their graduate degree again if they had another opportunity to do so.

Highlights

  • Current and emerging challenges to public health in the 21st century are vastly different from those faced in previous centuries

  • Fulltime Master of Public Health (MPH) education is unique in China, because it has been developed from the academic degree of public health to cultivate high-level public health talents

  • Since there is no formal assessment of the educational quality of the full-time MPH programme, universities and colleges have an urgent need for scientific evidence in this regard

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Current and emerging challenges to public health in the 21st century are vastly different from those faced in previous centuries. In order to fulfill this requirement, the Ministry of Education initiated a full-time, Master of Public Health (MPH) graduate programme in 2009. In order to fulfill this requirement, the Ministry of Education initiated a full-time, Master of Public Health (MPH) graduate programme in 2009, and this marked a major change in China’s public health education from academy-orientated to an application-centered model [5]. Fulltime MPH education is unique in China, because it has been developed from the academic degree of public health to cultivate high-level public health talents. We have found scarcely any studies on this topic, via online database searches, either in Chinese or in other languages [6,7,8]

Objectives
Methods
Results
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call