Health Sciences Langara College

Overview

The Health Sciences programme from Langara College is rooted in epidemiology, the core science of public health. Epidemiology provides a framework and tools to enable health professionals to describe population health, develop hypotheses to explain observed differences, test hypotheses, and ultimately develop, implement and evaluate interventions based on high quality evidence.The complexity of understanding the contributors to both good and poor health, and furthermore enabling populations to improve their health, requires a multidisciplinary approach which draws on both arts and science. Health scientists furthermore need excellent communication skills to translate scientific research into accessible, empowering information for the public.

As well as epidemiological and public health principles, the study of health sciences encompasses traditional arts subjects such as anthropology, psychology, sociology, geography, history, philosophy and political science, and science subjects such as chemistry, biology, environmental sciences, and statistics. Topics which have only more recently been explicitly addressed, include addiction, ecohealth, gender, indigeneity, orientation, race and racism, sexuality, and social justice, and the impact they have on public and population health.  

Career

Health Sciences blends a variety of disciplines to provide students with the skills to tackle issues which impact people at the local, national and global level.

Upon completion of the program at Langara College, students are prepared for entry to third year to the Faculty of Health Sciences at SFU.

Students completing Health Sciences programs at Langara College will be in a position to continue their studies towards either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science at Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences.

Upon graduation from SFU, students can find careers in both the public and private sector. For those following the Arts stream, potential employment may be in health ethics, health policy or global health. For those following the Sciences stream, employment in environmental health, biostatistics or randomized control trials for pharmaceutical companies are possibilitites.