PubHlth 632 Applied Epidemiology:
An intermediate level course which reinforces the basic concepts and principles of epidemiology. The major focus of the course is to apply epidemiological methods to a variety of public health issues, including research in disease etiology, disease prevention and heath services assessment. Students develop and use a systematic assessment technique to critically evaluate and guide the discussion of published scientific studies. Prerequisite: BIOEPI 630 or permission of instructor. |
PubHlth 750 Public Health Emergency Management
This course is designed to provide an overview of public health management in preparing for or responding to a disaster. Sine disasters, by definition, cannot be effectively managed by the application of routine procedures or resources, this course provides needed guidance in a variety of newly defined and emerging areas for the field of public health. The breadth of topics will familiarize the students with the tools necessary to understand public heatlh responsibilities in disaster preparedness and response. |
PubHlth 640 Intermediate Biostatistics:
Principles of statistics applied to analysis of biological and health data. Continuation of BIOEPI 540 with emphasis on the use of the computer and the student's research interests in public health and biostatistics. Topics include: analysis of variance, nonparametric statistics, categorical data methods, regression analysis, and sampling. Prerequisite: BIOEPI 540 or permission of instructor. |
PubHlth 690B Research Methods for Prevention Studies:
This course will provide students with a basic understanding of evaluative research designs used in prevention studies, and highlight specific methodologic challenges and methods which should be considered in behavioral epidemiologic studies and studies of the efficacy and effectiveness of behavioral intervention. The course will cover benefits and limitations of design choices and data collection methods as well as qualitative methods for formative studies. Emphasis is placed on survey research issues including item design. Prerequisite: BIOEPI 630 or permission of instructor. |
PubHlth 635 Psychosocial Epidemiology:
This course provides an overview of the epidemiology of psychiatric disorders and the service system used in their treatment. The course includes a survey of methodological issues in psychiatric epidemiology, the incidence and prevalence of psychiatric disorders and their socio-demographic correlates. The course provides an overview of mental health services, the contemporary service system, and policy issues which shape the system. The implications of demographic trends in psychiatric disorders for the delivery of mental health services, as well as the role of epidemiologic data in the planning of services, will be discussed. Prequisite: BIOEPI 630W or permission of instructor. |
PubHlth 628 Financial Management of Health Care Institutions
Providing qualify affordable health care for all Americans is a top priority for policy makers today. Increased emphasis is being placed on the financial implications of both managerial and clinical decisions. This emphasis has created a need for financial skills among clinicians and managers who in the past did not need these skills. This course intends to provide health care professionals and policy makers with a foundation of financial and managerial skills. The subject matter will be covered through lectures, readings, casework and examinations. The lectures will introduce and reinforce the concetps in the readings and the cases are designed to give students the opportunitiy to apply finance concepts to "real world" healthcare organizations in a classroom setting with team exercises. |
PubHlth 633 Communicable Disease Epidemiology:
This course will feature a review of selected infectious diseases with emphasis on current theories of distribution, transmission and control. The goals of the course are to provide participants with: 1) a sense of the history of medical/public health approaches to a number of our most important communicable disease problems, including conceptualization, discovery, and attempts at control; 2) an understanding of the disease process that occurs as a result of the interaction between agent and host, including the pathologic changes and manifestations of illness; 3) a knowledge of the descriptive epidemiology of the disease and 4) a foundation in the concepts that form the basis of communicable disease epidemiology, including an appreciation for the policies and public health actions that follow from epidemiologic findings. |
PubHlth 690G Survey Research in Public Health:
This course introduces students to the foundations of survey methods and the use of surveys in public health. Self-reported data, collected using various survey methods, are used to estimate behavioral risks, disease prevalence, access to medical care, health literacy, and physical activity. Course topics will include survey design, sampling and sample design, formulating questions, implementation and data collection, analyses, and ethics. Course will focus on wording of terms and response options, developing scales and composite measures, multilingual translations, and respondent burden. Course will examine issues of reliability and validity in creating public health surveys, including asking questions about sensitive topics. The goal of the course is to develop an informed user of public health surveys who is prepared to field health surveys and analyze survey data. Prerequisite: BIOEPI 630 or permission of the instructor. |
PubHlth 691F Practical Date Management and Statistical Computation:
This course is an introduction to the use of IBM compatible microcomputers for study management. Major components include an overview of micro computing, the Disk Operating System (DOS), principles for computer programming, documentation, applications of data entry software, editing software, and the Statistical Analysis System (SAS-PC). The course is microcomputer intensive. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to define the specific aims of a research question, formulate an appropriate study design, enter and formulate an appropriate study design, enter and manage data into an IBM compatible microcomputer using Epi Info or Dbase, program simple statistical analyses using the Statistical Analysis System for Windows (SAS-PC for Windows), develop and interpret multivariable regression analyses, and reports on its findings. Prerequisite: BIOEPI 640 or permission of instructor. |
PubHlth 660 Design of Clinical Research:
Students will become familiar with basic and advanced design principles for conducting biomedical research involving human subjects and will apply these principles in developing research proposals to address specific scientific questions. Students will also improve their ability to critically appraise the scientific literature. |
PubHlth 583 Global Health:
Major issues and controversies in international health including the global burden of illness, barriers to health, policies and programs which impact health outcomes, ethical issues in research and health care and the role of various international institutions and agencies in the global health agenda will be presented. Students will apply a framework for problem solving incorporating the socio, economic, political and ethical factors confronted in international health. The vital importance of health in the developing world to the globalization of the world's economies will be discussed. |
PubHlth 621 Health Care Organization and Administration:
This course will cover the basic theories of organization and management and demonstrate their application to the health care system. The assumption is that students have taken PH620, and that they are familiar with the health care system. The course will be conducted as a seminar, with students preparing and conducting most of the discussion. Topics in the course will include policy issues affecting organizations in their entirety, as well as operational issues affecting segments of organizational activity. Class discussion will be developed through the analysis of cases, using theoretical concepts. |
PubHlth 524 Introduction to Health Politics and Policy:
This course is designed to sensitize students to the political dynamics of health care issues in legislative and administrative contexts. This course is concerned with the determinants of health policy in the United States, including decisions and non-decisions made by institutional and political actors at all levels of government and by private sector actors. This course covers the social and cultural development of American medicine, historical efforts to pass national health insurance legislation at the federal level, and growth of government's involvement in healthcare. Particular attention will be paid to the recent failure of health care reform.  |
PubHlth 780 Public Health Law
Constitutional and social bases for public health law. Development of statutes and regulations and their effects on social problems, including review of court decisions and preparation of administrative regulations. |
PubHlth 704 Health Program Planning and Evaluation:
This course will provide students with real world experience in developing a program plan and designing an evaluation. In this class, students will progress from attaining knowledge of program planning and evaluation processes to application of theory into practice. After completing the course, students will be able to:
· Delineate the role and accompanying responsibilities of the successful public health administrator/manager as planner and evaluator
· Identify essential planning models and discuss various frameworks and components of efficient and effective public health model plans
· Describe the decision making process in selecting evaluation strategies appropriate for health program or project
· Demonstrate the necessary skills and techniques necessary to create a public health planning and evaluation document |
PubHlth 639 Cancer Epidemiology:
This course is designed to provide the student with an introduction to basic principles of cancer biology, definitions and classification of cancer, sources of cancer data and the relationship between experimental and epidemiologic data. Students are also introduced to the relationship between various environmental exposures and the development of selected cancers. The emerging role of biomarkers in cancer epidemiology and the use of chemoprevention and screening in cancer prevention and control will be discussed. |
PubHlth 691X How to Write a Scientific Paper:
This course is an intermediate level that provides students with a practical and hands-on approach to scientific writing. Preferred students are those whose work or graduate training requires the writing of a manuscript at or near the time of enrollment in the course. Students will develop an in-depth understanding of the peer review process of scientific manuscripts. Through a series of writing exercises, students will gain practical experience in the development of a scientific paper including the research objectives, methods, study results, presentation and data analysis, and discussion of study findings. Students will be graded on their homework assignments, written reports, and oral presentations. PubHlth 631 Epidemiologic Investigations |