Master's programme Health Education and Promotion

Director of Studies: Dr. J. de Nooijer
E-mail: j.denooijer@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Profile

Are you interested in helping individuals to maintain their health and well-being? Do you like working with groups such as employees, children, older people or patients, but do you not know how to address their health problems effectively? Would you like to contribute to environments and organisations that are conducive to healthy living? Did you experience problems with motivating people to change unhealthy behaviour and would you like to learn more systematically about reasons for behaviour and health promotion strategies? Then you are in the right place within our master's programme Health Education and Promotion. We welcome you and we look forward to see you participate in our master's programme.

The MSc in Health Education and Promotion focuses on the development and evaluation of health interventions, both at the behavioural and environmental level. It combines a solid base in theory and research with a practice-oriented approach. The curriculum largely focuses on the application of behavioural and social sciences in the development of interventions. These interventions are structured and founded in planning models, such as Intervention Mapping, that guarantee the use of theory and evidence.

Interdisciplinary by nature, the Health Education and Promotion master's programme combines elements from psychology and communication sciences with knowledge of epidemiology, biomedical sciences, sociology, political science and management sciences. Throughout the programme, students are regularly introduced to highly relevant health promotion issues, both in terms of disease (cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma, and mental illness), salutogenic and health-threatening behaviours and organisational and policy matters. A substantial amount of time is set aside for teaching research skills.
Curriculum overview MSc in Health Education and Promotion.

Student profile

The Health Education and Promotion master's programme aims at students who want to pursue a career in health education and promotion. Students are highly motivated to achieve health improvements by developing and evaluating health interventions, and have a keen interest in (the interfaces of) behavioural, social, medical and health sciences. They combine a fascination for research and theory with a practice-oriented approach. Applicants to the Master of Health Promotion and Education must have a relevant bachelor’s degree of a university or a university of applied sciences (in Dutch: HBO). The last few years applicants had a bachelor in for example health sciences, medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, dietetics, speech therapy, sports and health.

Career prospects

With a master’s degree in Health Education and Promotion, you could have a career in public health, healthcare services and other public organisations such as national health promoting agencies, regional institutes for mental welfare, hospitals and national or international health institutes. Many graduates launch careers in intervention development while others assume research or advisory positions, or enter the teaching profession.
More information about the content of this programme.