MSc Health Policy, Planning and Financing

About the MSc programme

This programme is based in the Department of Social Policy| and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and offers students the opportunity to have close contacts with leading research centres in the field of health policy, such as LSE Health and Social Care based in the Department of Social Policy.

The MSc Health Policy, Planning and Financing is one of the oldest graduate level programmes in health policy worldwide, having been offered continuously since 1986. The programme aims to develop competence and expertise in the field of health policy, planning and finance. You will develop:

• an understanding of the process of policy making.
• knowledge of key options in the policy, planning and financing of health services.
• an ability to use disciplines required in formulating, implementing and evaluating health policies and plans.
• an understanding of the diversity of international health policies.

You must take courses to the value of five units overall, one of which includes a 10,000 word long dissertation.

Students will be supervised by staff in the Department during the course of the academic year, particularly in what concerns the selection of their dissertation topic.

For each course, students will need to undertake private study, seminar preparation, assessed essay writing and teamwork where applicable. Students are also expected to see their tutors a couple of times per term at least and discuss their dissertation topics and progress on it in individual meetings during the Lent Term and the Summer Term.

Career destinations after graduation are wide and varied, reflecting the diverse international mix multi-disciplinary nature of the Health Policy, Planning and Financing class.  Graduates from the programme are typically employed by national governments, international organisations, research/management consultancy, industry and the voluntary sector..

NB: Potential applicants are strongly advised to check the relevant web pages of both LSE and LSHTM as these will always contain the most up to date version of the MSc programme regulations and structure.

Compulsory courses

(* half unit)  

• Financing Health Care* (LSE)
• Health Services* (LSHTM) 
• Dissertation 

Options

One half unit from the following LSE courses:

• Health Economics*
• Pharmaceutical Economics*
• Foundations of Health Policy*

Plus one half unit from the following LSHTM courses: 

• Health Policy, Process and Power*
• Basic Epidemiology* 
• Issues in Public Health*

Plus an additional two full units from the following:

• Statistical Methods in Health Care Economic Evaluation*  
• Cost-effectiveness Analysis in Health Care*
• Valuing Health*
• Advanced Health Economics*
• Economic Evaluation*
• Economic Evaluation for Health Policy*
• Health Systems and Policies*
• Health Systems and Policies in Developing Countries*
• Health Impact and Decision Analysis*
• Analytical Models for Decision Making*
• Organisational Management*
• Conflict and Health*
• Primary Health Care Revisited: Concepts, Tools and Experiences in Low and Middle Income Countries*
• Globalisation and Health*
• Behavioural Public Policy*
• Another half unit course (with permission)