CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR THE MASTER OF PUBLI C-HEALTH USING AN IN-SERVICE EDUCATIONAL-MODEL

This article presents the curriculum design process experience of the School of Public Health of Mexico's In-Service Master of Public Health Program, offered through the distance education model. The Program wa s created as a response to the Mexican health system's human resources training needs, with the purpose of contributing to the health servic es decentralization process, the strengthening of managerial skills of local health district managers, and to the profesionalization of publ ic health. The Program's design and development are based on a distanc e education system as an alternative to the traditional training model s. The distance education model offers the possibility to train human resources on their job, to link permanently theory and practice, and t o improve, in the short-term, the professional performance of students . The curriculum design process included the analysis of the student's training needs based on their professional profile, the type of plan of study that could take into account those training needs, and of the advisers and tutor's required profile, educational background, and jo b experience. The different disciplines were grouped around the knowle dge objects, and not around independent courses. The health planning p rocess was taken as a central axis and conductive line for integrating the thematic contents. The Master's plan of study was conformed by fo ur stages: health diagnosis, formulation of the organized social respo nse, implementation, and evaluation.