Public Health  

PHP 900 - Public Health Care Systems
Credits: 3.00
The focus of this course is on the pattern of services in the United States and on the structure and function of their component parts. It examines the impact on the system of a wide range of external factors including social, political, economic, professional, legal, and technological forces.

PHP 901 - Epidemiology
Credits: 3.00
Exploration of factors underlying the distribution and determinants of states of health in various human populations. Emphasis is placed on investigative techniques, epidemiologic methodology, and disease prevention.

PHP 902 - Environmental Health
Credits: 3.00
This course offers a general introduction to the ecological basis of health and disease. It applies the principles and framework of ecosystems to human health problems associated with environmental hazards, including toxic and infectious agents that contaminate our air, water, food, the work place and other special environments. Links between environmental and occupational health effects will be explored within the public health model. Policy required for regulation and alternative strategies for prevention will be discussed.

PHP 903 - Biostatistics
Credits: 3.00
This course introduces students to the principles of biostatistics. Students will learn through classroom instruction, lab instruction and exercises, a variety of statistical methods in public health. Students will review measures of central tendency, rates, and standardization, probability, sampling, hypothesis testing, comparisons, and simple, multiple and logistic regression techniques.

PHP 904 - Social and Behavioral Health
Credits: 3.00
A graduate level course which provides fundamental concepts of the behavioral sciences as they illuminate public health. Since public health practice is the application of physical, biological and behavioral knowledge to living societies, a firm understanding of human social organization and behavior is essential. Individual and community responses to prevention, identification of symptoms, diagnoses, treatments, chronic ailments and rehabilitation are discussed. In each of these areas, the course explores the interaction between community, family, patient, and health care provider.

PHP 905 - Public Health Administration
Credits: 3.00
This course on public health managers, organizational culture, management process, management functions & roles, leadership, motivation, communication, and human resource management.

PHP 906 - Public Health Finance and Budgeting
Credits: 3.00
This course reviews the manner in which public health services are financed in the United States, including sources and uses of such funds. In addition students will be introduced to the vocabulary and tools of financial management and budgeting, including financial statements, basic accounting conventions, and the process of developing and managing a programmatic budget.

PHP 907 - Public Health Policy
Credits: 3.00
An analysis of the public policy process, the development of public health policy in the United States, and a discussion of specific public health policy issues with international comparisons. This course begins with an analytical framework for analyzing the American political system and process. It is followed by a general introduction to health policy in the United States with examples of specific policies and programs. Students will be asked to examine in depth selected specific public health policy.

PHP 908 - Public Health Ethics
Credits: 3.00
This course examines selected ethical issues arising in public health policy and practice and ethical dilemmas faced by public health professionals, practitioners, and researchers. Students analyze competing personal, organizational and professional, and societal interests, values, and responsibilities. Case studies apply different models of ethical decision making and provide MPH students with an added opportunity to explore and clarify their values and those of their colleagues.

PHP 912 - Public Health Law
Credits: 3.00
This course seeks to provide the legal basis for public health that is needed to effectively practice public health, especially with respect to understanding and enforcing compliance with public health regulations, and managing public health programs and organizations. The course introduces the core elements of law, legal practice and reasoning, and illustrates their application and use in public health.

PHP 914 - Public Health Policy Analysis
Credits: 3.00
Analysis of the public policy outputs from the perspectives of effectiveness, efficiency, and equity by applying analytical tools to public health policies in the United States. This course begins by examining the major methods used to examine health policy outputs. The perspectives of effectiveness, efficiency and equity are used as a framework for the course. Students read and critique articles from health services research literature that use previously learned methodologies.

PHP 920 - Social Marketing
Credits: 3.00
This course offers and introduces students to the vocabulary and tools of marketing public health programs and services. Expanding upon traditional principles of marketing and consumer behavior the student will be exposed to the theory, practice and challenges of marketing social change. The course also explores the current and emerging issues related to public health marketing.

PHP 922 - Public Health Economics
Credits: 3.00
This course gives each student a hands-on opportunity to become familiar with a broad range of health economics issues and analyses. The objective is to help its graduates successfully compete for advancement in careers requiring knowledge of health policy analysis.

PHP 924 - Policy and Practice of Community Health Assessment
Credits: 3.00
This course explores the process of community health assessment as a tool for bridging the gap between public health and the personal health care system. It provides an historical perspective of using population based measurements as a framework for health improvement initiatives. It examines several community health assessment methodologies including IOM, CIAP, PATCH, APEXAH, and VHA approaches and explores the complexity of developing a community-based health assessment.

PHP 930 - Climate Change and Health
Credits: 3.00
An overview of the climate system including its physical and chemical compounds, the greenhouse effect, forcing agents and dynamics at global, regional and local scales. Human dimensions of climate change will be considered in light of data and models. An environmental epidemiology framework for analyzing the direct and indirect impacts of climate variability to public health as well as appropriate public policies, such as monitoring the greenhouse gas emission reductions will be developed.

PHP 932 - Disease Ecology
Credits: 3.00
Students will have an understanding of the basic structure and dynamics of: climate system, ecological systems, social systems. Also gained will be the understanding of epidemiological significance of co evolutionary processes linking climate system with ecological and social systems that influence the interaction between human beings and disease agents and the understanding of the relational significance of assessment frameworks including ecosystem health, ecosystem services, environmental epidemiology, epidemiological environment.

PHP 934 - Work Environment Policy and the Health of Workers
Credits: 3.00
Overview of occupational safety and health policy in the U.S. Focus on the legal context, especially on OSHA, and provides an anlytical framework for examining the role of social, economic, and political factors in the recognition and control of occupational hazards. Some attention to the more technical aspects of this field (e.g., industrial hygiene, ergonomics, general health and safety); emphasis on understanding current occupational health and safety policies and controversies.

PHP 940 - Public Health Nursing I
Credits: 3.00
In the context of history, standards, and research in the field of public health and the roles to be played by public health nursing in their situation. The framework is based on the first three stages used in the scope of practice: community assessment, diagnosis, and outcomes identification.

PHP 942 - Public Health Nursing II
Credits: 3.00
Role and leadership: the remaining three stages of the scope of practice is used as the framework of this course: program planning, assurance, and evaluation. The function of policy development and leadership roles such as project management, case management, teaching and research are developed as means for operationalizing this practice. International implications for practice will be considered.

PHP 985A - Special Topics in Policy and Management
Credits: 1.00 to 3.00
Study of a special topic in Public Health Policy and Management. Prereq: permission.

PHP 985B - Special Topics in Public Health Ecology
Credits: 1.00 to 3.00
Study of a special topic in Public Health Ecology. Prereq: permission.

PHP 985C - Special Topics in Public Health Nursing
Credits: 1.00 to 3.00
Study of a special topic in Public Health Nursing. Prereq: permission.

PHP 990 - Field Study
Credits: 3.00
This course provides a semester long opportunity to apply core and concentration knowledge and skills to a particular area of public health under the direction of a faculty member and a community public health mentor. Permission required.

PHP 995 - Independent Study
Credits: 1.00 to 3.00
Directed readings and other activities to explore a specific topic related to public health. Permission required.

PHP 998 - Integrating Seminar
Credits: 3.00
This course provides the opportunity for students from various concentrations in public health to focus on a common public health problem from their individual and joint perspectives. This incorporates substantive, analytical, administrative, and policy perspectives. Students make a formal presentation of recommendations.