Program Overview

The Graduate Diploma of Public Health is part of the CQUniversity suite of Public Health courses. It continues the application of a social-ecological model of health to public health education. This model which is strongly aligned with contemporary trends and challenges in public health provides the basis for innovative interventions for social change. Unlike other Public Health courses that traditionally focus on the medical model of health, the Graduate Diploma of Public Health at CQUniversity will also incorporate a social perspective of public health skills, knowledge and practice. The Graduate Diploma of Public Health has more depth of content than the Graduate Certificate in Public Health and includes a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary opportunity to combine your public health studies with another field of study.

This innovative course will explore the origins and evolution of public health and the underlying principles of community-based and community-led public health. The social-ecological model of health forms the basis of the Graduate Diploma in Public Health. You will be introduced to complex adaptive systems thinking and how this influences how we think about public health.

This approach reflects contemporary trends in public health and provides the basis of innovative interventions for social change. You will undertake units that outline the origins and evolution of public health and the underlying principles of community-based and community-led public health. You will explore fundamental concepts associated with these principles, including complex adaptive systems thinking, social and environmental determinants of health, social epidemiology, social justice, partnership development and participatory research. You will have the opportunity to apply these concepts in practical ways in both strengths-based and disease-prevention approaches.

The course offers you the choice of two electives from a restricted set of non-public health units to complement your public health practice. This will allow you to develop multi- and trans-disciplinary synergies between public health and at least one other field of study.