With this Curricular Unit, it is intended that students:
- Understand the principles underlying the Public Health.
- Identify the main needs and health problems in a National and International context.
- Understand the fundamentals of the various strategies of primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary prevention.
- Understand the essential characteristics of the health system, and of the major national and international projects and programs in health.
- Understand the dynamics and distribution of health and disease in the community and its determinants.
- Describe the use of epidemiology in the choice of priorities, planning and evaluation of interventions in Public Health, and interpret epidemiological studies.
- Participate adequately and effectively in the community as educators and public health professionals, namely: participating in the response to public health emergencies; advising on health promotion, disease control and prevention and healthy lifestyles; evaluating, validating and producing health education, counseling and health care information; communicating effectively with health professionals and the general population; ensuring the quality of public health research with a correct analysis of the risks/benefits and the results emerged from pre-clinical experimentation, clinical trials, and clinic.

Within the scope of transversal competences, this Curricular Unit aims to contribute to the development of:
- Cognitive Competencies: analytical, critical, reflective, and creative thinking.
- Methodological skills: time management, planning capacity and digital competencies.
-Social Competences: interpersonal communication and collaborative work.

Theoretical lectures
I. Definition and General Concepts in Public Health: History and evolution of public health in Portugal and in the world. Sustainable development goals. Action strategies. Areas of intervention. Main public health needs and problems in Portugal, Europe, and the world. Major global challenges.
II. Health and Disease: Concepts. Natural history of disease and its stages. Communicable and non-communicable diseases. Causal theories. Models representing the etiological factors of disease
III.Epidemiology: Basic concepts. Molecular epidemiology. Biomarkers. Pharmacogenomics. Personalized medicine. Epidemiological indicators. Types of epidemiological studies. Dynamics and distribution of health in the community and its determinants. Epidemiological surveillance. Risk/benefit assessment measures – measures of frequency, association, and impact. Pandemics and health emergencies. Epidemiological research.
IV. Disease Prevention, Preventive Measures, and Levels of Prevention: Healthcare services.
V. Health System Models: Main national and international health programs and projects. Directorate-General of Health and National Health Service. Health communication. Digital health. The role of the pharmacist in public health: interdisciplinarity, and collaboration with other public health professionals.
VI. Public Health Seminars.

Practical lectures
Demographic and health indicators. Quality of life indicators. Risk/benefit assessment measures – measures of frequency, association, and impact. Epidemiological studies. Practical exercises.
Application of knowledge in health surveillance, epidemiological surveillance, and health promotion activities. Development of educational campaigns. Analysis and discussion of scientific articles in the fields of epidemiology and community health.

Theoretical and practical classes will be taught using power-point presentations and videos. This type of methodology allows a better exposition of the subjects, as well as the use of diagrams, graphs, images, and films. Some theoretical classes include several seminars given by health professionals and researchers who will expose various current and highly pertinent topics in the field of Public Health.

The practical classes will be used to solve practical exercises on epidemiological studies, demographic and health indicators, and risk measures. Analysis and discussion of scientific articles in the field of Public Health.

- E-Learning platform (Moodle): students are provided with a page of the curricular unit on the Moodle platform with pedagogical content and communication tools essential for learning. In this page, the students will find not only the content in PDF format of all the slides of the classes, but also scientific articles, didactic videos, different bibliographic material to support the teaching of the UC.
- Communication with students is facilitated by the tool prompts the platform Moodle and by e-mail.

The attendance of students to theoretical lectures is not mandatory. The attendance of students to practical lectures is mandatory; students whose attendance is below 75% of the classes taught will not have approval.