MPH Common Core Courses

PHI 511: Foundations of Public Health

Autumn, 3 credits

Course Description

This interdisciplinary core course examines public health and healthcare in the US and globally using a social justice lens and emphasizing the interconnectedness of population and individual health. Using public health and healthcare delivery as the overarching framework, the course will cover foundational elements of public health, including, but not limited to, its history and impact, the importance of health equity and human rights, and how racism manifests and is perpetuated within public health and healthcare systems. The course will instill a public health mindset for the entering MPH cohort by having students work together on group projects related to current public health issues. 

Instructors

Miruna Buta, Health Systems and Population Health

Katarina Mucha, Global Health


PHI 512: Analytic Skills for Public Health I

Autumn, 7 credits

Course Description

To explore problems in public health/global health research and practice using both quantitative and qualitative methods, PHI 512 and PHI 513 will introduce mixed methods approaches to produce rigorous results. The importance of contextual understanding and integration of conceptual, theoretical, and methodological frameworks will be emphasized in the first of this two-part series. PHI 512 focuses on principles and methods of epidemiology and biostatistics, including: descriptive epidemiology, data summaries and presentation, study design, measures of excess risk, causal inference, screening, measurement error, misclassification, effect modification, confounding, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, p-values, sample size calculation, and modeling approaches such as linear regression analysis. Includes hands-on data analysis. The material in this course will position students to continue with EPI 513 and BIOST 512 in the Winter Quarter should they seek more depth in their quantitative methods training.

Instructors

Brandon Guthrie, Epidemiology

Katie Wilson, Biostatistics


PHI 513: Analytic Skills for Public Health II

Winter, 3 credits

Course Description

This course will introduce qualitative and mixed methods and their relevance to rigorous public health research and practice. This course places a strong emphasis on qualitative data analysis as an integral dimension of the mixed-methods approach. The first part of the course will describe contexts for and types of qualitative research questions, introduce frameworks, study designs and sampling approaches in qualitative research, and apply methods for data collection and analysis. The second part of this course focuses on mixed methods research and the integration of quantitative measures of magnitude and frequency with qualitative measures of meaning to produce rich contextual understandings of complex behaviors, cultures, and characteristics. The third part of the course focuses on strength of evidence, distinguishes and draws parallels between implementation and discovery science; and describes alternative study designs in the context of implementation science.

Instructors

Stephanie Farquhar, Health Systems and Population Health

Ariana Means, Global Health


PHI 514: Determinants of Health

Winter, 3 credits

Course Description

Many factors combine and interact to affect the health of individuals and communities. This course will describe and apply frameworks for understanding determinants of health at multiple levels and within different systems. Course material will emphasize individual- and family-level determinants, physical and social environments, population-level determinants, and systems dynamics. Students will learn how to apply theory and how to interpret and weigh evidence to identify and prioritize health determinants for public health research, practice, and policy.

Instructors

Kelsey Jesser, Health Systems and Population Health

Kate West, Health Systems and Population Health


PHI 515: Implementing Public Health Interventions

Spring, 4 credits

Course Description

In this course students will learn about the role of theory, evidence, community engagement, and ethics in health promotion intervention design, implementation, and evaluation. The course will begin with a module focused on identifying population needs, assets and capacities in order to inform intervention design. The second module will focus on the implementation of interventions and intervention strategies across multiple levels of the socio-ecological framework. The third module will focus on how to monitor intervention implementation and evaluate intervention outcomes.  Instructors will use a combination of lecture, small group work, in-class poster presentation and an intervention project paper, students will learn how to go from evidence to action, building on the perspectives and skills taught in the previous core courses.

Instructors

Nancy Puttkammer, Global Health

India Ornelas, Health Systems and Population Health


PHI 516: Public Health Practice

Spring, 3 credits

Course Description

Public Health Practice is the culminating course of the common MPH core curriculum, designed to integrate and apply knowledge of health determinants and public health systems, analytic skills and evidence-based approaches to real world public health problem solving. This course will develop system thinking skills and an understanding of the interrelationships between public health infrastructure, public health policy, leadership, management, communication and community engagement. Students will work in teams to apply their knowledge and skills in these areas to public health practice-based challenges using a case study framework.

Instructors

Jason Daniel-Ulloa, Health Systems and Population Health and Global Health