Public Health

In this course, students are guided in developing a plan for their public health applied practice experience (practicum). Students will identify their practicum site, determine applied practice objectives, and submit all necessary University forms and supporting documents.

In this course, students examine the field of public health, including the history of public health, its relationship to healthcare systems, applications of public health, social determinants of health, and the legal and ethical issues associated with public health. The objective is to provide students with a foundation in these and other cross-cutting public health topics for the remainder of the program.

This course introduces students to basic concepts in public health policy and public health program management. They will learn basics of healthcare organization and learn to distinguish between health policy and healthcare policy. Students will be presented a framework for health policy analysis. They will learn basic tools in program management.

This introductory course provides students with a broad exposure to basic environmental and occupational health topics including: ecology; population dynamics; air pollution; toxicology; food safety and security; climate change; renewable energy; vector-borne disease; environmental policy; workplace health and safety; water treatment; waste disposal; and risk communication. Students engage in online discussions covering the specific, general, and global issues associated with these topics and their relationship to population health.

In this course, students examine how the behavioral and social sciences can be used to: (1) understand human health-related behavior and (2) guide the application of behavioral theory to modify behavior in order to prevent, reduce, or eliminate public health problems. Students are provided with an overview of behavior-oriented perspectives based on health promotion/education, psychology, and health communication. Important social determinants of health are discussed with the overall goal that students successfully completing the course are able to apply health behavior theory to primary and secondary disease prevention.

In this course, students analyze the delivery of health care and public health in the United States and in other nations. An emphasis is placed on organizations, financing, management, and evaluation of various health systems. Global and national agencies and policies central to the delivery of health care and public health will be identified and examined with an emphasis on health inequity and solutions which create health equity.

In this introductory course, students learn basic epidemiological principles, methods, and tools to study the health of populations. Topics focus on the dynamics of disease transmission, descriptive epidemiological measures of disease, principles of study design, and causal inference. The main objective of this course is to provide students with a foundation that will prepare them to apply these concepts to both research and public health practice.

Course content will focus on the program/community assessment, program planning, and program evaluation. The central focus of the course will be the program framework to demonstrate and apply logic models for program assessment, planning, and evaluation. Students will use the framework of a logic model to assess population needs and capacities to understand what can be utilized to improve communities' health. A design plan for a population-based community health program and an evaluation plan to evaluate the public health program will be the main deliverables for the course. This is a required course for obtaining the M.P.H. degree.

This course introduces foundational research and study design methods for quantitative research in public health. We will cover the process of creating and defining research questions, different types of study design (observational and experimental), quantifying measurement for different study designs, ethics in research, survey design/survey sampling, research protocols, data collection/management, and descriptive statistics. The main objective of this course is to provide students with a strong foundation and understanding of the planning and collecting data components of the research cycle. This course will be a foundation for PUBHG 537 Biostatistics.

Course content will focus on quantitative research methods to address public health issues. The main goal of the course is to introduce students to the research investigative cycle within the context of public health with planning, collecting data, summarizing the data, using statistical inference, and making appropriate conclusions from the study. The course will cover types of variables and processes for data collection from a quantitative perspective, study design concepts, and descriptive statistics. Students will be introduced to a statistical software package (SAS) and be able to analyze data using descriptive statistics. This is a required course for obtaining the M.P.H. degree.

In this course, students review and utilize qualitative techniques commonly seen in public health research and practice. Students are introduced to a variety of topics including, but not limited to, paradigms of qualitative research and inquiry, selected data collection and analysis methods for qualitative research in public health and strategies for reporting qualitative findings. The course emphasizes the development of practical skills in selecting a qualitative research methodology, engaging in qualitative data collection (e.g., interview or focus group facilitation), and analyzing and interpreting qualitative data.

This course introduces biostatistical methods and applications. We will cover inferential statistics (t-tests, Chi-square tests, correlation analysis, and linear regression), the role of biostatistics in the practice of public health, and how to align methods to answer statistical questions in public health. Students will be able to explain the role of quantitative methods in describing and assessing a population's health. Students will be able to select appropriate quantitative methods to answer research questions given certain data collection methods. Students will also learn a statistical software package (SAS) in depth and be able to analyze quantitative data. The main objective of this course is to provide students with a strong biostatistics foundation and understanding of the importance of statistical knowledge in public health. This is a required course for obtaining the M.P.H. degree.

In this course, students learn strategies to engage stakeholders across multiple disciplines, geographic locations, and cultural perspectives to address public health challenges using One Health approaches. Students learn how the principles of One Health are applicable to current issues that threaten human, animal, and environmental health. Case studies are used to analyze practices and to propose One Health strategies for a range of public health problems.

Students receive an overview of food governance, policy, and regulation in the United States and globally. The roles of public and private sectors at the local, state, national, and international levels are reviewed with the objective of giving students a perspective on the complexity of food policy through legislation, government regulations, and private sector agreements that ultimately impact global health. Students choose a relevant topic with the objective of critically analyzing the current food regulatory system in the U.S. based on these factors.

This course presents a public health perspective on climate change and ecosystem health. Students explore how climate change is defined and assessed; its environmental causes and effects; and its effects on populations. Public health initiatives, public education, and policy options to reduce climate change, minimize its effects, and heighten resilience are discussed. The background science and ethics of diversity and inclusion will be applied to the study of climate change, with a focus on climate and environmental justice and cultural humility. The overall objective of this course is for students to articulate how global policies related to energy and agriculture impact human, animal, and ecosystem health and how diversity, inclusion, and cultural humility are key elements to these relationships.

Students learn about the National Response Framework and how the US government responds to domestic disasters. The phases of disaster response and the roles and responsibilities of local, state, and Federal agencies are discussed. The objective of the course is for students to understand the factors that enable them, as medical and public health leaders and responders to comprehensively assess these crises and effectively participate in their management and response.

In this course, students will explore leadership, management, grants, and finance from a health perspective. Leadership attributes including ethics, courage, values, and supervision will be examined. Fayol's five functions of management will be reviewed. Fundamental accounting and finance documents and procedures will also be introduced with an emphasis on the contract and proposal process.

Students participate in experiential training in public health within healthcare settings and government-sponsored organizations in the local geographic area and other more distant sites. Students enhance their didactic learning experiences by practical application, and they acquire a broad public health perspective to specific health-related problem solving. Students receive a total of 4 credits for the practicum experience, which may span one or more quarters.

The M.P.H. degree requires that students develop competencies in public health through coursework, a practicum experience, and other projects or activities. The goal of this course is for students to integrate these didactic and practical experiences to address public health issues or problems. Students will apply competencies through public health case studies and a final culminating project. The culminating project will include written and oral components, which serve as evidence of synthesis of public health foundational and concentration competencies appropriate for the students’ educational and professional goals and ideally useful to external stakeholders.

This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to advance or expand the public health practicum experience. Students will continue a previous, or select a new, supervised public health applied practice experience in a community organization to support public health efforts that are meaningful to the organization. Students build upon their didactic learning experience by practical application, working with public health professionals, and they acquire a broad public health perspective to specific health-related problem solving. Students receive a total of 2 credits for the practicum experience, which may span one or more quarters.

This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to advance or expand the public health practicum experience. Students will continue a previous, or select a new, supervised public health applied practice experience in a community organization to support public health efforts that are meaningful to the organization. Students build upon their didactic learning experience by practical application, working with public health professionals, and they acquire a broad public health perspective to specific health-related problem solving. Students receive a total of 3 credits for the practicum experience, which may span one or more quarters.

This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to advance or expand the public health practicum experience. Students will continue a previous, or select a new, supervised public health applied practice experience in a community organization to support public health efforts that are meaningful to the organization. Students build upon their didactic learning experience by practical application, working with public health professionals, and they acquire a broad public health perspective to specific health-related problem solving.. Students receive a total of 4 credits for the practicum experience, which may span one or more quarters.

Despite advances in technology and social expectations, food safety remains a significant threat to human health and social stability. In the first part of this course, students explore food-borne pathogens of public health significance, the ecology of microorganisms in food, and their implications for food safety. Students examine current food-related issues through a one health lenses with a focus on food safety, food security, and food defense. Legislation and social issues related to biotechnology in food and food sustainability movements are explored. Consideration of these topics from the local, national, and global perspectives help students achieve appreciation for the role of public health in food protection.

In this course, students examine how geographic locations influence disease dynamics and health outcomes. Illuminates the importance of local knowledge for public health, connects issues in health and well-being across scales, and demonstrates the ways that geographic methods are relevant in health sciences, societal sciences, and policy arenas. Fundamental principles and concepts behind the use and application of Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping software as a tool for integrating, manipulating, and displaying public health related data will be presented.  Students will gain hands-on experience working with GIS software.

In this course students explore the effects of globalization and its social and scientific consequences in public health with the objective of developing systems thinking to address global health concerns. Topics include the interplay between global stressors such as population growth and migration, war, economic policy, urbanization, land use and environmental change, and the effects on the health of human and animal populations.

In this course, we will examine the building block concepts of public health nutrition, including nutrient requirements, interpretation of food labels, food assistance programs, and dietary guidelines and resources. We will also explore various U.S. nutrition monitoring tools and how they inform U.S. nutrition policy and programs. This course also reviews basic principles of nutrition epidemiology and introduces dietary assessment methodologies used in nutrition research. Students will also learn how to critically appraise the nutrition science literature to apply evidence-based approaches to disease prevention and health promotion. The overall objective is for students to obtain a foundational understanding of nutrition science, the promotion of health through nutrition, and the prevention of nutrition-related related disease in populations.

Policies, technological advances, and a shift in the work we do have reduced acute occupational injuries over the last 100 years. Increased awareness over the last 50 years in chronic injuries has impacted occupations and economies globally. In the last 25 years there has been more awareness of the costs of social injuries including a loss of work-life balance, working from home, and diversity and inclusion issues. This course examines these evolutions, how to assess impacts, and opportunities for change associated with the dynamics of occupational health. Lectures, case studies, and exercises are integrated with the overall objective to teach various methodologic and analytic approaches to studying the relationship between occupational and environmental exposures and health outcomes in humans and animals.

This course will introduce frameworks and concepts central to public health ethics and contrasts public health ethics with those found in other health professions. Students will learn strategies for making ethical decisions in situations that commonly arise in public health practice. Students will develop critical thinking around how public health campaigns and public health decisions may affect One Health principles. Students will become familiar with available tools and resources to address ethical challenges.

Chronic conditions are among the most significant modern public health challenges having surpassed infectious diseases as the main contributors of mortality and morbidity in the developed world. This course will survey the epidemiology of common chronic diseases around the globe from interdisciplinary and life course perspectives. Students will examine methodological issues in studying chronic disease, consequences of chronic diseases for individuals and healthcare systems, and disparities in chronic disease. Non-medical and One Health drivers of chronic disease will be explored and serve as the foundation for approaches for prevention and control at the population level.

Students address recently emerging infectious diseases and explore emergence factors and impacts on public health from a One Health perspective. Epidemiologic concepts such as natural reservoirs, modes of transmission, in-apparent versus apparent infections, and herd immunity are discussed. The objective is for students to learn and apply strategies for prevention and control of zoonotic and other emerging infections. Case studies are used to illustrate and apply concepts.