Community Medicine and Public Health — PhD reading list.

Reading for Community Medicine and Public Health

A PhD scholar in community medicine works from two shelves at once: Park for the Indian programme detail that examiners and reviewers expect, and a global reference like Detels or Maxcy-Rosenau-Last for the theory and comparative evidence that a thesis chapter has to sit on. Coursework and the comprehensive viva usually test both — national health programmes, RCH indicators and NHM structure out of Park, and health systems, screening theory and prevention frameworks out of the larger texts. Thesis work then pulls in the behaviour-change and health-promotion literature for intervention design, and the ICMR ethical guidelines for the IEC submission, which in India is a document you will be asked about line by line. Most scholars own Park outright and borrow the imported titles from the department library, so the buying decision is usually Park plus one big reference.

Titles are tagged core reading — the ones scholars work right through — or reference, the ones they look things up in. Editions are given where the current edition is what you want to buy.

1. Park's Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicinecore readingK. Park · Banarsidas Bhanot Publishers · 28th edition (2025)The Indian anchor — national programmes, epidemiological definitions and demographic data that Indian examiners and reviewers expect you to quote exactly.
2. Oxford Textbook of Global Public Healthcore readingRoger Detels, Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Fran Baum, Liming Li, Alastair H. Leyland (eds.) · Oxford University Press · 7th edition (2021)The multi-volume reference used for the theory and methods chapters of a thesis and for comparative international evidence.
3. Maxcy-Rosenau-Last Public Health and Preventive Medicinecore readingMatthew L. Boulton, Robert B. Wallace (eds.) · McGraw Hill · 16th edition (2021)Read for environmental and occupational health, communicable disease control and health systems chapters where Park is deliberately brief.
4. Textbook of Public Health and Community Medicinecore readingRajvir Bhalwar (ed.) · Department of Community Medicine, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, in collaboration with WHO IndiaThe Pune-authored Indian reference, strongest on field methods, epidemiological reasoning and health administration written for Indian settings.
5. Oxford Handbook of Public Health PracticereferenceIchiro Kawachi, Iain Lang, Walter Ricciardi (eds.) · Oxford University Press · 4th edition (2020)Short, practical entries on needs assessment, health-impact assessment and programme evaluation — useful when framing the methods section.
6. Health Behavior: Theory, Research, and PracticereferenceKaren Glanz, Barbara K. Rimer, K. Viswanath (eds.) · Jossey-Bass / Wiley · 6th edition (2024)The standard source for the behavioural theory a health-promotion or intervention thesis has to name and justify.
7. National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research Involving Human ParticipantsreferenceIndian Council of Medical Research · Indian Council of Medical Research · 2017 editionRequired reading before the institutional ethics committee submission — consent, vulnerable groups and community-based research are all questioned from here.

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Community Medicine and Public Health at postgraduate level