Health Psychology

Is this the programme you're looking for?

Why are smoking behaviour and financial problems related? 

How can digital interventions support the mental health of young adults? 

Which behavioural change techniques are most effective in countering obesity in deprived neighborhoods? 

How do we motivate people to stay healthy, live a meaningful life, and actively participate to society when they become older?

If you're curious about the answers to these questions and more, this master track is the right choice! By the end of this programme, you will be equipped with scientific knowledge and practical experience in behaviour change methods and technologies, ready to make a real impact on health-related societal challenges.

Key Facts & Figures

Type
Master
Degree
MSc
Mode of study
Full-time
Instruction language
English
Duration
1 year
Study points (EC)
60
Start date
September
Application Deadline (EEA)
30 May
View all

The study programme in a nutshell

In this track, you will explore how psychological insights, evidence-based methods, and user-centered design approaches are applied to create innovative solutions that address societal needs, tackle psychological problems, promote healthy behaviours, and prevent unhealthy ones. You’ll become familiar with various models of behaviour change and health behaviours, gaining a strong theoretical understanding and practical skills in intervention design and implementation, practicing with real world cases. For example, you will be challenged to develop ideas on how to change the food environment into a healthy one or develop a concept of an app to enhance resilience and improve mental health.

This master will train students to become all-round professionals who are able to apply scientific knowledge on health promotion in practice. With increasing shortages in care professionals and the challenges posed by an aging population, experts in this field will be in high demand. Graduates will stand out due to their strong theoretical foundation and exceptional research and professional skills, including teamwork, project management, scientific integrity, transparency, and communication.

Why this study

Watch the study programme video

Health psychology

Student perspective - Health Psychology

What you will learn

This master track is for anyone with an interest in the psychology of behaviour change and the use of interventions to affect behaviour and promote health and wellbeing, both in the community or digitally. In this master you will learn:

  • How you can use psychological theories to design and evaluate innovative, effective and inclusive interventions on an individual and system level, meeting the needs of diverse communities with a life span approach (e.g. from birth to older age).
  • How you can use digital technology to provide unique solutions for an increasingly complex society (e.g., e-health interventions).
Programme overview

Is this the right programme for you?

  • This programme is unique as it combines state-of-the-art theoretical and methodological knowledge on health psychology and behavior change with practical expertise on how to design, implement and evaluate behaviour change interventions in complex, real-life contexts.
  • Active education, where you work in groups to solve real-life behavior change challenges by designing interventions in a multidisciplinary context.
  • Attention to the development of professional skills (e.g., personal leadership, team working, project management).

Want to know more? Meet us here

Students meeting each other

Find out everything you need to know at one of these (online) events.

All our education events

Career opportunities after graduation

After graduating, you can work, for example, as a behaviour change specialist in public health services, healthcare, and private organizations (e.g., governmental institutions, NGOs, consultancy firms, scientific associations), or as a research scientist in academic institutions. You can also work as a digital intervention designer, project manager or UX researcher in tech and e-health companies.

This could be your future

What do our students think?

Marissa Duess

Marissa Duess - Alumna Health Psychology

Through this programme, I have learned what a huge difference effectively developed e-health technology can make.
Through this programme, I have learned what a huge difference effectively developed e-health technology can make.

I have always been passionate about helping those who need it most. With a background in psychology I was confident I could make a difference but not so sure how to do so without being a healthcare worker. I saw this program as an opportunity to learn new ways to make a difference in an increasingly digitized world and to use my expertise to support health care workers, and patients.

Through this programme, I have learned what a huge difference effectively developed e-health technology can make not only to health care workers and patients, but also to individuals who don’t have equal access to health care and especially to those who can benefit from preventative care (everyone!). 
This programme has offered me many new inspirations for my career, as well as valuable real-life project experience, knowledge that can be transferred to various contexts, and fantastic mentors and friends. 

Julie Landsman-Gerjoi

Julie Landsman-Gerjoi - Student Health Psychology

This master is an awesome programme that’s given me a practical foundation to start working in health psychology!
Julie Landsman-Gerjoi
This master is an awesome programme that’s given me a practical foundation to start working in health psychology!

​​​​So far, this programme has been a great experience, even with the changes due to covid! Our class is small, which means we’ve gotten to know each other and the professors well. We were able to have good conversations during the workshops and collaborate on various projects.

Our classes are interesting with many unique guest speakers and case studies. The blocks build on the knowledge from the courses directly before, so you really get the opportunity to use the things you’ve just learned. My favourite class has been the design of digital interventions where we actually got to design an intervention ourselves using our fellow classmates as end users. It was really cool to see an app from a literature review to mockups of the design. 

I chose this master’s programme because I wanted to learn more about improving health in a practical way, and since social interactions and care are becoming increasingly more virtual, to incorporate a digital aspect to those interventions. I also of course wanted to come live in the Netherlands!

Even during corona time, EUR has made great efforts to connect the students to each other and the faculty and really made the best of the situation. Our classes, while virtual, are still collaborative, informative, and relevant. The course content has definitely met my expectations in terms of preparing me for the next step of my career. I hope to work on digital programmes and projects that will improve health for the youth populations.

This master is an awesome programme that’s given me a practical foundation to start working in health psychology!

Julie Landsman-Gerjoi

Maartje Witteveen

Maartje Witteveen - Student Health Psychology

I recommend this Master’s programme to anyone who likes learning about behaviour change and health psychology and enjoys a combination of research and more practical activities.
I recommend this Master’s programme to anyone who likes learning about behaviour change and health psychology and enjoys a combination of research and more practical activities.

After I finished my Bachelor of Psychology at Erasmus University, I was not sure what kind of Master I wanted to do until I saw the Master ‘Health Psychology’. It grabbed my interest since this program allowed me to improve my research skills and use my creativity to work on more practical activities at the same time.

Within this programme, classes are small, and you work closely with fellow students and teachers. You practice with real-life problems, research these, and try to come up with solutions while considering modern interventions. This is all done under the supervision of very kind, professional teachers who make you grow both professionally and as a person. Practicing with and working on these real-life problems also helped me during the internship period, in which you can apply your knowledge to practice. You get to understand in what ways your research skills and knowledge about behaviour change can be valuable to a company or organisation.

In conclusion, I can say that I learned a lot from this Master's programme, and I look forward to bringing everything I have learned into practice. I recommend this Master’s programme to anyone who likes learning about behaviour change and health psychology and enjoys a combination of research and more practical activities.

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