In 1994, in order to constitute a postgraduate program at the Community Health Department (DSC), it was designed the institutional and pedagogical project of the Master in Public Health of the Federal University of Ceará, the second master in the Public Health/Collective Health in the northeast region (the first one was the existing in the Federal University of Bahia).
The proposal of the Master in Public Health (process no. 23067.932/93-87) was approved at the Federal University of Ceará by means of the Resolution of the Teaching, Research and Extension Council (CEPE), no. 24 from September 8th 1993 and the Resolution of the University Council (CONSUNI-UFC), no. 7 from September 10th 1993, commencing its activities the following year.
This course is authorized by the National Education Council (CNE) by means of the Ordinance of the Ministry of Education (MEC), no. 1077 from August 31st 2012 which was published on the Union Official Diary (DOU) from September 13th 2012, section 1, page 25.
The Master in Public Health was designed to constitute not only the UFC postgraduate program in Public Health, but also to encourage and support similar initiatives in other areas of the Center of Health Sciences including PhD professors from other departments since there was not the minimum faculty required for the immediate constitution of the Master’s.
In this process they were created afterwards courses such as Master in Pharmacy, Master in Dentistry and Master in Pediatrics, all of them including members of the Master in Public Health faculty.
During the implementation, the postgraduate program was based on the disciplinary nucleus of epidemiology as a single area of concentration, but it has already revealed its commitment to other disciplinary perspectives of the area through its lines of research.
Since its creation, the UFC Master in Public Health has assumed great regional importance. It has welcomed throughout its existence, students from the interior of Ceará and neighboring states whom have not had access to postgraduate programs in Collective Health in their places of origin. It is still worth mentioning that its consolidation also resulted in attractiveness to students from other regions of the country.
Its relevance is verified by CAPES recognition, since it has been the first Master in Public Health to obtain the score 4 in the Collective Health state context according to the triennial assessments of that agency. The last triennial assessment shows the advances achieved after a broad restructuring and improvement in the last two triennials.
The profile of candidates to the UFC Master in Public Health is quite heterogeneous: professors from different institutions in the state of Ceará and northeast of Brazil, managers of health systems and services, as well as newly graduates from several areas of health, education, human and social sciences, young workers of health systems and services.