Overview/history of the Department

The Population, Family and Reproductive Health (PFRH) department was established as a derivative of the University of Ghana Johns Hopkins Bill and Melinda Gates Institute collaboration initiative in 2002. As one of the key departments of the school, our services to students cut across the various areas in maternal and child health, reproductive health, nutrition, population, adolescent and family.  Our programmes have an established, long history of providing public health professionals of "choice" to the districts, regions, and national health care workforce. 

The department hosts the World Health Organisation/Human Reproduction Alliance hub for Anglophone Africa as well as the HIV Comorbidity Research collaboration between the University of Ghana School of Public Health and Yale University School of Medicine. The department also serves as the African partner for the delivery of online MSc in Reproductive Health Policies and programmes with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. We are extremely proud of our highly experienced and committed 11 faculty members, who breathe life and excitement into our courses. Our faculty pursue scholarly research in a myriad of areas in Maternal and Child Health, Nutrition, HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health. We also run MSc Bioethics programme which is a new interdisciplinary programme that aims to produce high calibre individuals who would ensure ethical implementation of public health interventions including the conduct of research. Upon completion, graduates may be employed as Bioethicists providing ethics support to the different aspects of public health.