Key Courses - MSPH in Health Services Research
RSPH Core Requirements
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.
Emphasizes the underlying concepts of the epidemiological approach, stressing study design. Discusses the calculation and interpretation of measures of frequency, association, and public health impact. Discusses sources of study error including the influence of chance, bias, confounding, and effect modification.
Pre-requisites: GEH, GH, and GLEPI students may not enroll unless with departmental permission.
The overarching objective of GH 500 is to equip students with critical perspectives and resources that they will need as public health professionals and global citizens in our increasingly inter-connected and interdependent world. The course introduces students to: (1) fundamental cross-cutting themes that contextualize contemporary global health issues; and (2) selected health topical areas such as maternal and child health, pandemics, and non-communicable diseases. The course provides an overview of the past, present, and expected future directions of global health.
EH 500 is a survey course designed to introduce public health students to basic concepts of environmental sciences, to the methods used to study the interface of health and the environment, to the health impacts of various environmental processes and exposures, and to the public health approach to controlling or eliminating environmental health risks. To address these concepts, basic environmental health principles (exposure assessment, environmental toxicology, environmental epidemiology, risk assessment), as well as specific environmental health issues including water and air pollution, hazardous chemical/waste exposures, climate change, and environmental drivers of disease ecology, will be covered.
Online Asynchronous. 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.
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.
Health Services Research Requirements
In addition to the courses below, students must take 11 credit hours of electives.
Required for HPM students. Examines the formulation and implementation of health policy in the US health care system. Emphasizes the application of analytical contributions from health economics, health services research, and other policy-related disciplines to current issues in health care delivery, organization, and financing.
Introduces basic supply and demand concepts applied to health care markets, using microeconomic theory. Topics of discussion include what does or does not make health care distinctive as an economic good, the market for health care in theory and practice, and economic proposals to overcome existing market failure.
Department of Health Policy and Management
Prerequisites: HPM 500 or HPM 501, and HPM 521. Examines the theory, methods, and applications of economic evaluations (cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit, cost-utility) of health care programs, using examples from both developing and developed countries. Applications range from economic evaluations of medical procedures to economic evaluations of intervention programs in developing countries.
Prerequisites: HPM 500 or HPM 501 and HPM 521. Focuses on the principles of public finance to enable students to evaluate tax subsidies and revenue structure used to finance health care with comparisons to alternative structures. Students apply the concepts of equity and efficiency in financing health care at the national and state levels.
Department of Health Policy and Management
Prerequisite: HPM 581, 730. The seminar provides HPM MSPH students with the guidance necessary for developing a quantitatively-based thesis using large secondary data sets. It begins with development of a researchable health policy question and the selection of appropriate databases and operational definitions. Enrollment is limited to students admitted to the MSPH in health policy research.
Department of Health Policy and Management
The course is an introduction to SAS software with a focus on organizing and merging large databases for purposes applying statistical analysis. The course complements the introduction to SAS in the BIOS 500 lab. Enrollment is limited to students in the HPM MSPH program.
Department of Health Policy and Management
Prerequisite: HPM 585 and BIOS 500. This course introduces student the STATA software with a focus on using the software for statistical analysis for data which has been organized using the SAS software. The course builds on the concepts intro in BIOS 500 and concludes with regression analysis. Enrollment is limited to students admitted to the HPM MSPH program or permission of the instructor is required.
Department of Health Policy and Management
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.
Preparation of a monograph based on original research applicable to public health. Should be publishable or have potential public health impact.
Department of Health Policy and Management
The purpose of this year-long seminar is to acquaint students with the major areas of health policy research, active areas of research in health policy and economics, and faculty from the Department of Health Policy and Management and elsewhere in the University who conduct health policy research. The course will address a different topic every week, and the instructor for that week will provide an overview of the topic, discuss the research methods that are used to study the topic, highlight the seminal works in the area, and lead a discussion of the readings.
Department of Health Policy and Management
Spring. This course guides students through the process of writing a health services research proposal that is grounded in theory. The course work emphasizes the development of a conceptual framework tailored to a specific research topic by drawing on existing theory, conceptual frameworks, and scientific literature. Other course topics include conducting literature searches and critically reviewing relevant literature; defining and measuring theoretical constructs; developing testable hypotheses; identifying potential omitted variable bias; and executing an effective research presentation.