The Part I Syllabus
The Part I examination is intended to test candidates' knowledge and understanding of the scientific basis of public health, and their ability to apply their knowledge and skills to the practice of public health. This syllabus provides indicative guidance on the main topics that may be examined at Part I.
Part I consists of two papers: Paper I is designed primarily to test knowledge, and Paper II primarily to test skills. The knowledge part of the syllabus is broken down into five sections, which broadly relate to the structure of Paper I of the examination. The skills part of the syllabus is broken into three sections, material from any of which may be tested at any point in the skills part of the examination.
The skills tested at Part I are not the same as those tested at the OSPHE, or through the RITA / portfolio process. An ability to extract, process and present data, to criticise research evidence and to communicate in writing to a non-specialist audience, are required for Part I, rather than the more complex skills tested later. Division of material into sections is only a guide: candidates should expect questions that draw together knowledge from different sections, and should note particularly that inclusion of a subject area within one section of the syllabus does not preclude its use in a different section of the examination. Candidates should especially note that there will be sharing of subject material between Paper I and Paper II.
The level of knowledge, skill and understanding required within all sections of the syllabus is that which could reasonably be expected of a competent practitioner in public health who may aspire to attain the specialist's status. Some core data handling skills and the ability to perform core statistical techniques will be required in the examination - sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive power, numbers needed to treat, relative risk, odds ratio, attributable fraction, Standard Error and Confidence Interval (CI) of a proportion and of a difference in proportions, Chi Square for a 2 X 2 table, McNemar's test, standardisation - direct and indirect, weighted averages, CI and standard errors for means. Although many public health practitioners will not need to be able to execute some of the more complex techniques described in the syllabus, they will need to understand and interpret results from them: this level of understanding is expected from all candidates.
Future re-mapping to Faculty competencies will be done without altering content significantly.
The Syllabus | Knowledge testing | Skills testing | The Structure of the Examination | Marking