Presentation

The Program

The Graduate Program in Collective Health (PPGSC) was created in 2005, with the Department of Preventive Medicine of the Paulista School of Medicine. Its basis was the Graduate Program in Epidemiology, created in 1988, to which professors from the areas of Social and Human Sciences in Health (CSHS) and Policy, Planning and Health Management (PPGS) were incorporated. This is a multidisciplinary program that initially had aging, indigenous health and diabetes as main axes of study. The change in faculty over the years reflected the alteration of the main lines of research in the program.

Recently, while renewing the teaching staff, projects on drug abuse and violence, immigration and health, Mindfulness, gender issues and sexual identity, and humanization in health were incorporated, in addition to innovative proposals for management in the Brazilian Unified Health System and intervention evaluation.

The program is now structured in one concentration area (Collective Health), three areas of knowledge (Social and Human Sciences in Health, Epidemiology and Policy, Planning and Health Management), and three lines of research ("Work and Care Management and/in Health," "Longevity, chronic conditions and quality of life," and "Health, Society and Ways of Life").

Most professors have postdoctoral training, dedication of at least 20 hours per week to activities of the program, international partnership in top universities and are highly specialized in at least one of the major areas of collective health. It is noteworthy the leadership of these researchers in consolidated problems in the area of Collective Health, as well as in innovative approaches in topics little explored.

Most students are health professionals, but some of them are master and doctoral students graduated in other areas of knowledge, such as anthropology, engineering, statistics, social communication, among others. This multidisciplinarity is characteristic of the PPGSC students and faculty.

PPGSC is also recognized for its social insertion, with extension actions in the community, such as those carried out with the Epidoso Project, the Xingu Project, in the Community Garden, in the Centro Mente Aberta/Mindfulness, in the Center for History and Philosophy of Health Sciences (CeHFi), in projects to prevent drug use, and in public schools and extension courses on various topics (immigration, drugs, mindfulness, and others).

PPGSC classes occur during business hours during the week, with a load of 720 hours-class in the master’s degree and 1080 doctoral hours-class, besides the time invested in the realization of the research project, in all its stages, and in the preparation of the thesis. English proficiency is required to join the program. Presentations in congresses and submission/publication of scientific articles are part of the requirements for completion.

Thus, the decision to attend master and doctorate at PPGSC should also consider the intense level of weekly dedication that the course will require throughout the training.