Top books and resources for Public Health students

As a final year Public Health student, I would like to share my top books and resources that will help you with your studies.

I will share where you can find relevant data such as incidents, prevalence, mortality and morbidity and other health statistics, and where you can find the most recognised research studies about major public health issues. I’ve also listed which books you should read to be a superstar during your degree.

These books will give you a variety of knowledge that you can apply during different modules and in your future career.

Carneiro, Ilona, and Natasha Howard. Introduction To Epidemiology, 2011
This book will help you learn about epidemiology - one of the most crucial parts of Public Health. It will introduce methods and applications of this science for improving health and preventing different diseases. Also, in this book, you will find how to measure health outcomes and understand different epidemiological data.

Sim, Fiona. Issues in Public Health, 2011
I would recommend reading this book at the beginning of your studies to really understand what Public Health is. The book has information about important historical events, globalisation and differences in health between higher and lower-income countries.

Johnson, James A., et al. Comparative Health Systems: A Global Perspective, 2017
This is one of my favourite books. This book includes various information about different diseases, public health policies, economics, and different countries' and regions' health systems. This book will be helpful in several modules during your Public Health degree.

Drummond, Michael F., et al. Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes, 2015
One of the BSc Public Health modules involves health economics. This book will give you a lot of relevant knowledge about evaluating the health economy and how to make valuable health decisions.

Hagger-Johnson, Gareth, Introduction to research methods and data analysis in the health sciences, 2014
Data is everything in Public Health. You will need to analyse, collect and make various decisions according to the statistics which you have every day during your degree and in your future career. So, it is important to have data analysis skills. This book will be handy for exploring data and learning about various statistical analyses.

Next, I would like to share some relevant links where you can find current data and research studies, which you will be able to use in your reports, presentations and other relevant work.

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)
This page has a lot of world data. For example, you can compare how many people die from cardiovascular disease in the UK compared to Japan. Or you can find how many Mumps cases were registered in Iraq in the past few years.

Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, Fingertips
Fingertips collect the largest health data in the UK. You can search for more specific information. For example, how many children under 5 years old were obese in Manchester or mental health incident rates in the East of England. You will be using those sources quite often, particularly when working on Public Health issues in the UK.

The next two sources are where you can find relevant studies. Throughout your degree you should not be using untrusted information from sources like Wikipedia. That's why it is important to have some trusted sources where you can find relevant information.

The Lancet
It is is one of the oldest and best recognised medical journals where only good quality research is published. I quite often used this journal for my reports and studies.

PubMed
PubMed is one of the best resources for Public Health students or researchers. This database contains millions of health literature items on various topics. If you are doing any work during your degree, I would definitely recommend looking for information here!

This is only the smallest part of the resources I shared with you today. As a Public Health practitioner, you are going to use so many different sources, read different books, and explore various databases.