Masters Discussion Forum

In the UK, LSHTM is probably considered the most 'prestigious' for this subject. But which course is best for you depends on your interests and plans (e.g. research vs intervention work, communicable/non-communicable disease, which kind of country/setting you're interested in.)

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True, although by the looks of it Cambridge only submitted 10 people to the RAE and LSHTM submitted 135. When you study epi you'll learn how small sample sizes can skew results ;-)

All three are excellent institutions overall. So really if you're trying to choose between them it comes down to the questions I suggested before about what you want out of the masters?

Yes, hence replying. But it would help to know what you actually want to find out. Are you trying to choose between one of the above courses? If so, selection of the 'best' course for you depends upon what you want to do afterwards and what your interests are.

If you want to work outside the UK, particularly in an LEDC settings, choose LSHTM. Ditto if you're into tropical diseases. The expertise and professional networks you would have access to there are probably unrivalled.

If you want to work in developed countries and/or are more interested in chronic diseases, it's a closer call. None of them would be a bad choice. If you have a specific areas that you want to get into subsequently, maybe check out whether there are any groups working on that at each uni.

I'm afraid I know very little about the course at Cambridge and whether it has anything to offer beyond what Imperial and LSHTM do (I've never met anyone who's studied it at Cambridge). From what I know, the research interests there seem to be mainly primary care research and genetic epidemiology, so if that's your thing then it might be a good place to go.

I did biomedical sciences originally, but now work in clinical outcomes research. I did my Masters at LSHTM where there was about a 50:50 split of clinical to non clinical people on the course, which made for a really nice mixture of areas of interest and experience. If I had to choose again I would still go there because it was a fantastic experience, but overall it was a little more geared up towards communicable disease at the time (the course structure has since been through a bit of revision). The course at Imperial might have been better suited to the kind of things I've since gone on to do, but I don't regret my choice.

If you're interested in genetic epi, Sheffield actually do a specialist masters in that. Or at least they used to, but I'm struggling to find details, so maybe it's been discontinued.