Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Program in Public Health

The Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health program, offered by Chulalongkorn’s College of Public Health Sciences (CPHS), specializes in Public Health and Management, Community and Reproductive Health, Urban and Global Health, Environmental and Occupational Health.  

The trimester-based international program provides a variety of types and duration of study to respond to students’ needs as follows:

1. Health Policy and Management Program is committed to training and inspiring the next generation of health care leaders. Our students and faculty are passionate about making the world a better place by improving health and health care. We work on compelling and important problems, from making the delivery of care safer and more efficient, to expanding health insurance coverage and eliminating disparities, to designing and improving the performance of entire health systems.

2. Community Assessment and Reproductive Health is designed to provide an understanding of community health and reproductive health and population issues as well as the knowledge necessary for understanding community health needs and reproductive health interventions. The program will also explore and examine community, national and global challenges relating to the social, cultural and economic context influencing community health and reproductive health.

Community Assessment consists of Basic Concepts of Community, Community Structure, How to Approach Community, Community Mapping, Social Mapping, Social and Cultural Characteristic of the Community , Community Participatory Appraisal, Community Assessment, and Prioritization of Community Problems.

The Reproductive Health is composed of Introduction and Enhancing Access to Reproductive Health, Family Planning, Maternal and Child Health, Adolescent Health, Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion, Prevention of  HIV/AIDS in Young People, Cancer of Reproductive system, and Aging Care.

3. Urban and Global Health puts an effort to gear students, both M.P.H and Ph.D., toward a plethora of urban and global health topics, ranging from economics, politics, social, cultural, and environmental aspects. Specializing in Urban and Global Health key courses will enable the students to become continuing life-long self-learners when coping with public health issues in one’s areas of responsibility in an integrated manner.

4. Environmental and Occupational Health focuses on environmental issues and management that improve public health and minimize adverse human impacts. These impacts of exposure to environmental pollution are the number one public policy issue in the Kingdom of Thailand and several countries. The public, private, and academic sectors are all striving to improve the ability to understand our environments and to protect them. Integrated courses consist of Environmental and Occupational Health, Environmental Epidemiology, Exposure Assessment, and Human Impact Assessment. 

The program’s primary goal is to train qualified professionals with expertise in environmental and occupational health. This includes hazard identification, recognition of at-risk populations and prevention of exposure. Many kinds of toxic agents are encountered both in the community and in the workplace, but there are significant differences in the circumstances and magnitude of exposure, hence the different requirements of strategies to control exposure and prevent disease. 

5. The Health Behavior Branch is designed for research careers in academic, non-profit, and governmental settings and for leadership roles. Students will learn the importance of health behavior contributed to current public health problems, ranges of factors that influence behaviors, nutrition, physical activity, obesity, alcohol drinking, smoking, addictive substance abuse. Concept and theory related to health behavior and risk factors are included.

Students should develop research on health behavior into populations with whom they have worked or will work in the future. They may also conduct research and intervention on alcohol, substance abuse and HIV/AIDS population including developing laboratory techniques in detecting alcohol and substance abuse in body fluid.