Course Sequence - MPH in Global Environmental Health
Course Sequence - MPH in Global Environmental Health
Fall 1
Includes 13 credit hours of required courses and 2 to 3 credit hours of RSPH core courses or electives.
Required
EH department students only. Required foundation course for students in all master's programs administered by Department of Environmental Health. Introduces students to major topics in environmental health, including mechanisms of toxicity, pesticides and other chemicals, children's health, WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene), infectious disease, air pollution, climate change, and planetary health. Describes tools used to understand these EH topics, such as exposure science, epidemiology, toxicology, biomarkers/omics, risk assessment, implementation science, and policy.
Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health
Prerequisites: college-level biology and chemistry or instructor's permission. The goal of this course is to introduce the student to the basic principles of toxicology. Humans are exposed to a variety of dangerous substances through occupational and environmental exposures. In order to interpret the public health implications of these exposures one must have a good understanding of how these compounds get into the body, how they are processed in the body, and how they damage particular organ systems. To accomplish this, students will gain practical knowledge of the workings of specific organ systems and will be able to identify particular environmental chemicals and their mechanisms of action that underlie organ toxicity. This information will be conveyed through lecture material and reinforced by relevant readings, in-class discussion, and additional assignments that are focused on ensuring that the toxicological topics are further evaluated and considered in the context of current environmental and human health concerns and do not simply exist as standalone facts.
Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health
This course is designed to teach students the fundamentals of applied statistical data analysis. Students successfully completing this course will be able to: choose appropriate statistical analyses for a variety of data types; perform exploratory data analyses; implement commonly used one and two-sample hypothesis testing and confidence interval methods for continuous variables; perform tests of association for categorical variables; conduct correlation and simple linear regression analyses; produce meaningful reports of statistical analyses and provide sound interpretations of analysis results. Students will be able to implement the statistical methods learned using SAS and JMP software on personal computers.
Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
The lab portion of BIOS 500 is designed with two purposes in mind: 1) to illustrate concepts and methods presented in the lectures using hands-on demonstrations and 2) to introduce SAS, a widely used statistical software package, as a data analysis tool. By the end of the semester, you should be able to produce and interpret statistical output for methods learned in BIOS 500 lecture.
Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
Prerequisite/concurrent: BIOS 500. Emphasizes the concepts and premises of the science of epidemiology. Methods of hypothesis formulation and evaluation are stressed. Techniques for quantifying the amount of disease (or other health indicator) in populations are introduced, followed by discussion of epidemiologic study designs useful for identifying etiologic factors and other relevant correlates of disease. Students gain facility with the calculation of basic epidemiologic measures of frequency, association, and impact. The concepts of random variability, bias, and effect modification are examined in detail. The use of stratified analysis, including Mantel-Haenszel techniques, is explored. Inferences from study results are discussed. Students are required to analyze and critique studies from the current medical and scientific literature.
Department of Epidemiology
1 hour online module addressing 4 of the 12 CEPH required Foundational Knowledge items. The module will begin with an introduction to a "Public Health Perspective followed by the 4 items of foundational knowledge.
Options
This course aims to provide students with an understanding of key aspects of the design, administration and function of health systems and their implications for social justice and equity. Health systems are the primary vehicles through which countries deliver health services to their populations. The course aims to equip students with an understanding of how responsibility, authority and accountability for health systems is created and managed, and how health systems are financed and administered, including the roles and implications of private sector involvement and profit in health systems. And the course examines the complex challenges of measuring the performance of health systems, with special attention to the distinction between equality and equity as organizing concepts for improving the fairness and effectiveness of health systems.
Hubert Department of Global Health
Provides the student with basic knowledge about the behavioral sciences as they are applied to public health. Content includes an overview of each discipline and current issues for students who are not enrolled in the BSHE MPH Program.
Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences
Required for all MPH students. Introduces students to the US health care system, both the public and private sector. Examines the structure of the health system, current topics in health care reform, the policy process, and advocacy for public health.
Department of Health Policy and Management
Spring 1
Includes 7 credit hours of required courses and 2 or more credit hours of RSPH core courses, global health methods courses, or electives.
Required
Prerequisites: GEH, GH, and GLEPI students only.
The goal of the course is to equip students with critical perspectives to address current and future global health challenges and opportunities as public health professionals and global citizens in this increasingly interdependent world. The course explores historical milestones, actors, assumptions, context and theories driving selected global health priorities in policy, programs and research. To do this, the course will enhance the skills of critical thinking, assessment of evidence from multiple perspectives and application of evidence in formulation of policies, programs and research priorities. A recurring theme throughout the course is that there are common global drivers influencing the health of populations and that cross-cutting issues of equity and systems transcend settings.
Hubert Department of Global Health
In this course, students will be introduced to the concepts of exposure science. Students will learn how contaminants are transported from sources to receptors and how human receptors are affected by such contact. Varying exposure science approaches, across a range of environmental media, including air, water, soil, and internal biological matrices, will be considered. Methods of assessment including direct monitoring of environmental media, modeling, as well as biomarkers of exposure will be presented and discussed in detail. Students will examine the literature of exposure science through readings, in-class article discussions, and by conducting a collaborative exposure assessment.
Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health
Prerequisites: EH Department student, EPI 530 and BIOS 500. Students will gain experience reading, evaluating, and interpreting epidemiologic studies on the impact of both workplace and environmental exposures, and thinking through practical considerations. The course aims to strengthen each student?s ability to read epidemiological literature critically. This aim will be realized through in-depth exploration of major study designs including cross-sectional studies, cohort studies, and case-control studies; and through the weekly readings and case studies. Although some data analysis is required, the focus of the class is on conceptual issues common in environmental and occupational epidemiology research and on the interpretation of findings. Successful completion of the course will also contribute to a richer appreciation of how the environment affects public health.
Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health
PUBH students will join students from health professional programs across the Woodruff Health Sciences Center to receive didactic training to perform effectively on interprofessional teams and to apply leadership and management principles to address a relevant public health issue. Interprofessional teams will compete in a health challenge competition designed to address public health and clinical issues of importance to the Atlanta community.
Options
Prerequisites: BIOS 500 or permission of instrcutor. This course is the follow-up to Biostatistical Methods I (BIOS 500). Students will apply many of the concepts learned in BIOS 500 in a broader field of statistical analysis: model construction. Topics covered include Linear Regression, Analysis of Variance, Logistic Regression and Survival Analysis. Students who successfully complete this course will have a deep understanding of many analytical methods used by public health researchers in daily life. BIOS 501 Lab is a component of this course.
Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
Prerequisites: None. GH511 is the first in the two-semester Program Cycle sequence and is typically taken in the student's second semester. This course will provide students with theoretical principles and practical skills for designing and managing global health programs and projects. Sessions will focus on core activities following the project life cycle, including community engagement, formative research, situational analysis, theory of change, project design, principles of project and financial management, and ethical considerations and challenges. This course uses a variety of approaches to foster the development of practical skills in program design and management including lectures, interactive group sessions, discussions with experts, and task-based assignments. This course is a prerequisite for GH512 Program Cycle 2: Monitoring and Evaluation of Global Health Programs. The course is taken for a letter grade.
Hubert Department of Global Health
This course will provide students with the principles and skills for conducting and evaluating qualitative research. Topics include: principles of qualitative research, study design, participant recruitment, ethical considerations, instrument design, data collection methods (interviewing, group discussions and observation), transcription and writing. Students will design and conduct a mini qualitative study to apply skills learned to real world situations. The course outlines challenges of using qualitative methods in international settings and provides guidance on fieldwork planning and implementation to prepare students for their Applied Practice Experience.
Hubert Department of Global Health
This course provides an introduction to the collection of quantitative, representative data. Taking an applied approach, we cover the entire process of designing a study, including instrument design, sampling methods, budgeting and training, fieldwork components, and coding and editing of data. The focus is on collecting data in less-developed countries. Students develop their own surveys and accompanying methods proposals, which they may use for their Applied Practice Experience or other projects.
Hubert Department of Global Health
Fall 2
Includes 4 credit hours of required courses and at least 5 credit hours of RSPH core courses, global health methods courses, or electives.
Required
This course introduces basic concepts underpinning research and project design in environmental health. Students will learn of integrative learning experience (ILE) project types in environmental health, identify and/or refine their individual ILE project topics, develop key elements required for proposing work on their project topic, and demonstrate project feasibility by producing preliminary results. Throughout, students will develop and apply their writing skills and participate in providing feedback to peers. By the end of the course, students will submit a full written ILE proposal and a video trailer summarizing their proposed project in visual format.
Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health
Prerequisites: Required: EPI 530 and BIOS 500; BIOS 501 or BIOS 591P; also preferred: EPI 539, EPI 540 or EPI 545; or instructor?s permission. Students will gain experience reading, evaluating, and interpreting EPI studies on the health impact of workplace & environmental exposures. Students will understand & interpret the EPI literature. Skills are developed through class lectures, assigned readings, & case studies. Most case studies require data analysis though the focus of the class is on conceptual issues common in environmental EPI rather than on applied statistics. Cross listed with EPI 747.
Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health
Options
Provides students with the technical skills to conceptualize and design process and impact evaluations of international public health programs or projects. Helps students understand the role of monitoring and evaluation in policy analysis, planning, program design and management.
Hubert Department of Global Health
Prerequisites: GH 521 or instructor permission. This course provides students with the principles and skills for analyzing qualitative data. Students will learn how to assess data quality, prepare data for analysis, use different analytic techniques, and write and present data. Students will learn analytic techniques through guided classroom activities, lab sessions using MAXQDA software and structured assignments. No data are required, we provide class data sets, but students can use qualitative data collected during their summer applied practice experience if suitable. Each student will work with an individual data set in course assignments.
Hubert Department of Global Health
Prerequisites: EPI 530 and BIOS 500. EPI 540, BIOS 501, and GH 531 strongly recommended. This course provides a conceptual and experiential foundation to address research questions using quantitative data. The course emphasizes the technical skills required to transform a quantitative data set (exemplars: NHANES and Demographic and Health Surveys) into a reproducible analysis for global health applications. Students will receive guided, structured experience with quantitatively operationalizing research questions, data acquisition and management, data exploration, formal data description, conceptualization and construction of composite variables, analysis of statistical associations, and addressing common threats to valid inference. Exercises will be completed using SAS software with an emphasis on programming specific to complex survey designs. Students must register for both lecture and lab components.
Hubert Department of Global Health
Spring 2
Includes 4 credit hours of required courses and at least 5 credit hours of RSPH core courses or electives.
Required
Politics ? who gets what, when and how ? stands at the intersection of power and policy. This course aims to prepare students to navigate political challenges faced by public health practitioners. Since public health reforms lead to winners and losers, this means ?political mapping:? identifying key players, their interests, and the institutions through which they operate. It means moving away from idealized ?best practices,? and toward politically feasible strategies that fit local contexts. To promote such political competence, the course makes use of ?frameworks? applied to specific cases, such as heat exposure of migrant farmworkers in the U.S. and family planning in Indonesia.
Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health
The goal of environmental justice is to create a world with socially and environmentally equitable outcomes and a world wherein all have equal opportunity to participate in processes leading to evidence- based, positive policy. The methods of environmental justice are based on what is necessary for creating that space: engagement of communities and cultivation of capacity to understand and respond to environmental concerns; moral and empirically sound collaborations, and the goal of making a visible and positive difference for communities. This elective course will review intellectual contributions by community-based, anti-colonial and social theory leaders; frameworks for structuring and maintaining community ties; special ethical considerations for working with indigenous and other historically colonized communities; and will offer examples of environmental justice in public health research.
Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health
An Applied Practice Experience (APE) is a unique opportunity that enables students to apply practical skills and knowledge learned through coursework to a professional public health setting that complements the student's interests and career goals. The APE must be supervised by a Field Supervisor and requires approval from an APE Advisor designated by the student's academic department at RSPH.
Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health
Options
Provides the student with basic knowledge about the behavioral sciences as they are applied to public health. Content includes an overview of each discipline and current issues for students who are not enrolled in the BSHE MPH Program.
Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences
Required for all MPH students. Introduces students to the US health care system, both the public and private sector. Examines the structure of the health system, current topics in health care reform, the policy process, and advocacy for public health.