The UFC Public Health Postgraduate Program (PPGSP) is composed by MSc and PhD courses which were created in 1994 and 2014, respectively. Thus, it has 25 years of History in the Brazilian Collective Health training network. It is worth mentioning that despite the PhD course has been created in 2014, it has resulted from the Collective Health Postgraduate Program in association of higher education institutions, an innovative experience in our reality. The PhD course began in 2008, initially with the participation of the Federal University of Ceará and the State University Of Ceará. In 2011, the University of Fortaleza took part in the association reaching a decade of experience by the Program faculty in PhD level. The UFC faculty has played a significant role in this successful initiative promoting recognition and prizes such as the CAPES Award for best PhD thesis of the year 2016 in the Collective Health area.
The UFC Public Health Postgraduate Program has assumed its social responsibility and it has contributed in a decisive way for the process of consolidation of the Unified Health System (SUS) emphasizing the studies about affairs of most relevance for the country, especially in the northeast region.
From this perspective, it favors the collective construction of processes with active participation of professors, students and staff stimulating and providing necessary conditions for peer collaboration, network organization, more interaction with society and increasing critical-reflexive spaces about the Collective Health area, especially in the state of Ceará, as well as the roles in different social and historical contexts. The program objectives are the following:
Principal aim
Offer excellent education in MSc and PhD courses in the Public Health/Collective Health area with focus on professors, researchers and health care professionals education, mainly those of the Unified Health System (SUS).
Specific aims
I. Educate qualified professionals to do research, teaching and extension allying in their education different nuclei and epistemic traditions constitutives of the Collective Health area;
II. Encourage the research and innovation in the Collective Health area in complex and interdisciplinary pedagogical perspective suitable to the conceptual challenges and praxis in the health care system;
III. Produce, disseminate and apply knowledge in Collective Health area focused on life and health condition enhancements, considering its determinants and the health system needs in the social and sanitary context in the state of Ceará and in the northeast region, but also connecting these realities with other Brazilian regions and the international scenario;
IV. Contribute to the advance in the scientific knowledge in the Collective Health area and to education enhancement in different levels;
V. Promote the scientific and technological cooperation in strategic scope for the Collective Health, consolidating it as an excellence and nucli center in this area in the northeast region.