Curriculum

42 credits

Basic Curriculum (32.5 credits)

The basic curriculum incorporates the core areas of public health instruction: biostatistics, epidemiology, environmental health, health services administration, ethics, and social/behavioral sciences. It focuses on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary in each of these areas of fundamental competency needed to understand, evaluate, and manage population health in medical care settings. This basic instruction is supplemented by advanced training in the health care services and programs. Key learning objectives of the basic curriculum include:

• Develop a population perspective on health and disease
• Understand the principles and practices of health promotion and disease prevention
• Integrate public health skills into the practice of evidence-based clinical medicine
• Appreciate the social and environmental factors that affect individual and population health
• Understand health care delivery as a social system
• Identify the ethical issues in disease prevention and health care delivery

PubH 6020    Fundamentals of Social and Behavioral Science (3)
PubH 6102    Issues in Environmental and Occupational Health (2)
PubH 6210    Seminar: Public Health Medicine
PubH 6299    Public Health as a Team Sport: the Power of Collaboration (1.5)
PubH 6320    Fundamentals of Epidemiology (3)
PubH 6414    Biostatistical Methods I (3)
PubH 6415    Biostatistical Methods II (3)
PubH 6741    Ethics in Public Health: Professional Practice & Policy (1)
PubH 6752    Public Health Management (3)
PubH 6852    Program Evaluation in Health and Mental Health Settings (2)
PubH 6862    Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Health Care (3)

Students must register for the following while enrolled in School of Public Health but may complete after returning to medical school. A public health medicine setting is required for field placement but may be double counted for clinical rotation with advisor approval.

PubH 7294    Master's Project (3)
PubH 7296    Field Experience (3-4)

Elective Curriculum (9.5 credits)

The elective curriculum gives the student the opportunity to investigate specific public health applications. Students are required to choose one course each from four different types of public health functions: public policy evaluation and implementation, primary prevention interventions, epidemiologic analysis of specific health problems, and management of health care organizations. Students are encouraged to arrange their elective curriculum around a theme of interest. Themes represent common public health problems: Maternal & Child Health; International Health; Occupational & Environmental Health; Infectious Disease; Clinical Preventive Practice; Nutrition; Students may choose to design a theme in consultation with the program director/advisor. Activities chosen in completion of the basic curriculum’s Field Experience and Master’s Project are coordinated with the theme chosen by the student for the elective curriculum. Key learning objectives of the elective curriculum include:

• Develop a public health analysis of a common health problem
• Understand the application of public health tools to a specific health problem.
• Apply public health skills in a clinical practice setting
• Students choose at least one course in each of the following four areas.

Students are encouraged to arrange their elective curriculum around a theme of interest: Maternal & Child Health; International Health; Occupational & Environmental Health; Infectious Disease; Clinical Preventive Practice; Nutrition.  Students may choose to design a theme in consultation with the program director/advisor.

Sample Elective Courses

Public Health Policy sample courses:

• PubH 6055    Social Inequalities in Health (2)
• PubH 6078    Public Health Policy As A Prevention Strategy (3)
• PubH 6105    Environmental and Occupational Health Policy (3)

Public Health Intervention sample courses:

• PubH 6010    Public Health Interventions for AIDS (3)
• PubH 6103    Exposure to Environmental Hazards (2)
• PubH 6914    Community Nutrition Intervention (3)

Epidemiology of a Health Problem sample courses:

• PubH 6140    Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology (2)
• PubH 6387    Cancer Epidemiology (3)
• PubH 6389    Nutritional Epidemiology (3)

Public Health Management sample courses:

• PubH 6066    Building Communities, Increasing Health (3)
• PubH 6724    The Health Care System and Public Health (2)
• PubH 6558    Health Care Finance (3)