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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Prerequisites: GH501, GH502, GH511, GH512, GH521, GH531 and GH522 or GH 532 (some may be taken concurrently). GH 598 is the GH Capstone Integrative Learning Experience and is taken in the student's final semester. The Capstone provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate skills acquired in prior coursework. Each capstone section will differ in content, based on instructor expertise, but all will require integration of deliverables from the HDGH Foundational, Program Cycle, and Quantitative and Qualitative sequences. At the end of the capstone course, each student will submit an individual deliverable in response to a global health challenge or opportunity. The deliverable may describe a program implementation plan or a formative research plan that will inform a future project, program or policy. All Capstone sections share the same underlying structure, of 10-15 students working closely with the instructor. The course is graded as Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.

All students in the HDGH must complete a thesis project in order to fulfill the requirements of the MPH degree. This project is a rigorous academic requirement; as the culmination of the MPH experience, it is an independent, theory-based inquiry in which the student applies knowledge and skills acquired during the MPH program to the scholarly study of a public health problem. In HDGH, the thesis project may take the form of either a Special Studies Project (e.g. a deliverable for an organization) or a Research Project (e.g. systematic review, analysis of primary or secondary data) using quantitative, qualitative or other methodologies and presented in a traditional style or manuscript style.

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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.

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.