Master of Public Health Curriculum

6 Core Courses
2 Statistics Courses
2 Research Methods Courses
2 Elective Courses
1 Writing Course
Essay

CORE REQUIREMENTS

PM 4l0 Introduction to Data Management and Data Analysis Using SAS
This course presents a thorough introduction to the SAS System for data management, statistical analysis, and reporting. Students will gain an appreciation of what SAS can do and a solid understanding of how to use it in their work. Prerequisite: BST 463 Intro to Biostatistics or Permission of Instructor.

PM 415 Principles of Epidemiology
This course provides an introduction to epidemiological concepts of disease and interventions to ameliorate them. The course discusses population-based aspects of disease, morbidity and morality statistics, basic study designs (cross-sectional, case-control, cohort and clinical trials), and the use of epidemiological data to draw conclusions about disease causation. At the end of the course, students should have a broad view of denominator-based medicine and be prepared for higher-level courses in epidemiological methods.

1 of the following:

PM 450 Management & Evaluation of Health Services Organizations
This course provides an understanding of executive level management and leadership in non-profit health and human service organizations. In addition, students study organizational context, program design and implementation, and the evaluation of health care services. Students will complete a health and human service not-for-profit agency-based project that will involve an analysis of management and leadership issues, as well as an exercise that is a component of a needs assessment, program evaluation or quality assurance assessment. Prerequisite: one semester of epidemiology or permission of the instructor.

PM 452 Community Health Improvement Practicum
This course provides ...

1 of the following:

PM 425 Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine
This course will provide the learner with a solid foundation and appreciation for primordial, primary, secondary, and tertiary disease prevention strategies on both an individual (patient and provider) and population-wide basis (society as a whole). The overarching theme of the course is to impress upon the learner the importance of and need for preventive health behavioral interventions and the positive impact healthy behavior change can have on our society as a whole on an environmental, economical, and social level. Ultimately, our nation as a whole, through population-wide behavioral change, will reap the benefits of a healthier society that will draw less upon our already scarce health care resources.

PM 426 Social and Behavioral Medicine
Topics covered are the associations between health and (1) social stratification and income inequality, (2) race, (3) gender, and (4) social networks and social support; the diffusion of medical innovations; doctor-patient relationship; international health; health-seeking behavior. Prerequisites for undergraduates: a college-level sociology course and permission of the instructor.

1 of the following:

PM 470 Public Health and the Environment
The objective of the course is to provide an overview of environmental issues related to public health. Physical, chemical, mechanical, biological, social and psychological environmental issues will be addressed through lectures, discussions, class exercises and site visits. Selected environmental issues will be addressed from a multi-disciplinary perspective including: public health, medicine, history, economics, and law. Current public health programs and policies will be discussed.

PM 486 Medical Ecology
This course is suited for students who wish a research-oriented, multidisciplinary approach to the study of environmental impacts on human health. It draws heavily on a global approach, and generates locally relevant lessons from case studies from around the world. Students are actively engaged in analyzing and generating case studies, and are expected to be comfortable with a multi-disciplinary approach (integrating social, biological and physical sciences) to examining illness, injury, and disease. Completion of this course fulfills the MPH departmental requirement for environmental health.

1 of the following:

PM 420 Politics and Policies in the US Health Care System
Provides an understanding of the principal health institutions and their behavior. Readings are used to explore selected topics of importance for national health policy and local decision-making. Contemporary health politics and policies are examined in terms of the influence of political and economic forces on the health care system and the particular historical development of health services in the United States

PM 421 Introduction to the US Health Care System
In this course, we examine the organization, financing, delivery, and performance of the US health care system. The inherent tradeoffs between access to care, cost, quality, and outcomes are considered from the perspective of the main actors in the system, i.e. patients, providers (physicians, hospitals, etc), health plans, insurers and payers. Topics include: need and access to care; health care insurance and financing; Medicare and Medicaid; managed care; service delivery, public health, quality of care, and others. The aim of the course is to help students deepen their understanding of the health care system, strengthen their ability to synthesize the literature and assess key current policy issues, and to further develop their critical thinking skills.


STATISTICS REQUIREMENT

BST 463 Introduction to Biostatistics
Basic statistical and data-analysis methods in medical research. Topics
include summarizing and displaying data, elements of probabilities estimation, confidence intervals, hypothesis tests, and methods for comparing means and proportions, and regression analysis. The MINITAB statistical package is introduced and used. The course is strongly use-oriented, stressing practical understanding and interpretation.

Choose 1 of the following:

BST 464 Statistical Methods for Biomedical Applications
Statistical analysis of clinical trials and observational studies. Analysis of covariance, multiple regression, logistic regression, log-linear analysis, and survival analysis (Kaplan-Meier curves and the Cox models). Measurement error.

BST 465 Design of Clinical Trials
Design, conduct, and analysis of clinical trials. Sample size, power, and randomization. Coordination, data management, compliance, interim analysis, and reporting procedures.

RESEARCH METHODS REQUIREMENT

REQUIRED: 1 course from the Core Methods list and another course from either the Core Methods list or from the Applied Methods list.

Core Methods

PM 412 Survey Research
This course will present students with an overview of the role of survey methods and tools in the research process, with a particular focus on survey research applications in health care research and epidemiology. The course will incorporate an integrated perspective, which includes a qualitative approach to conducting appropriate and accurate survey research.

PM 416 Epidemiologic Methods
This course is designed to provide an in-depth coverage of the quantitative methodological issues associated with population-based epidemiological research. Issues specific to study design, conduct, and analysis are emphasized. Topics to be covered include: issues in study design, topics in measurement, methods of data collection, confounding, effect-modification, and multivariate analytic techniques. Prerequisite: PM 415 Principles of Epidemiology and one semester of graduate level statistics or permission of the instructor.

PM 448 Health Policy Analysis
This course introduces the students to a variety of tools that are used to analyze governmental health policy. The tools and concepts are those found in economics (e.g., market analysis, efficiency), political science (e.g., analysis of voting behavior, interest groups, public opinion), and econometrics (e.g., regression analysis). Class discussions will be based primarily on selected journal articles.

PM 454 Global Public Health Informatics
This course will present students with an overview of trends in a wide-range of global public health indicators and the methodological tools available for addressing the analysis of international health data. The course will prepare students to conduct research in international settings and will focus upon the blending of methodologies to achieve research objectives. Further, the course will emphasize Internet tools and modes of communication to facilitate the conduct of global health research. Students will be required to conduct an Internet-based project sequentially conducted throughout the semester in consultation with public health researchers and officials in a variety of international settings. The course will emphasize hands-on, applied analysis of global health issues.

PM 458 Qualitative Health Care Research
A community’s health is not just determined by individual health behaviors, but also by cultural beliefs and forms of social organization. Traditional quantitative methodologies that have been so powerful in understanding biological phenomena have limited explanatory power when analyzing socio-cultural phenomena. Qualitative methods, long used in the social sciences, allow access to areas that quantitative methods cannot adequately reach. In addition, qualitative methods can function as a prerequisite to quantitative methods by hypothesis generation or identifying lay terminology for accurate survey developed. This course will cover standard qualitative methodologies through a discussion of relevant literature, class exercises, and a group project.

PM 482 Clinical Evaluation & Outcomes
This course covers the types of study design and settings available for original observations about clinical interventions and practice patterns. It focuses on the use of patient populations and databases as laboratories for the generation of new knowledge and information. Ways to improve the outcome and efficiency of personal health services through evaluating their effectiveness, quality, appropriateness, and cost are explored. The material covered will introduce the methods, databases and settings available for such studies. Prerequisite: one semester of graduate level statistics or of epidemiology

PM 484 Cost Effectiveness Research
Decision analysis is increasingly used to evaluate alternative choices in clinical practice and to enlighten and inform health policy determinations. In this course, students will be introduced to the concepts underlying the quantitative analysis of medical decisions. They will be provided with the basis to understand decision and cost-effectiveness analysis, which appear in the clinical and health services research literature as well as to be able to set up and perform such analysis themselves. Prerequisite: one semester of graduate level statistics

Applied Methods

PM 413 Field Epidemiology
This course will provide an overview of the practical applications of theoretical epidemiological concepts in the study of the distribution of diseases and their causes in populations. Emphasis will be on the hands-on discussion of basic methods in epidemiological research, including literature review; study design selection; measurement of disease; selection of relevant variables; development and administration of questionnaires; quantitative data analysis; and reporting study findings. These concepts are discussed in the context of case studies and special topics such as outbreak investigations, cancer cluster investigations, and meta-analysis. Prerequisite: Introduction to Epidemiology or permission of the instructor.

PM 417 Molecular Epidemiology
Using the same paradigm as traditional epidemiology, this course will explore the opportunities of the use of increasingly powerful biologic markers of exposure, disease, or susceptibility to provide high-resolution answers in relation to the causes of disease. The course will focus the practice of molecular epidemiology, as an interdisciplinary science, and the use of biologic markers to advance our knowledge about health and disease among groups of people in a manner that is appropriate for inference to larger populations.

PM 422 Quality of Care & Risk Adjustment
The purpose of this course is to explore the various methods and opportunities available to track and assess outcomes of clinical practices and medical technologies. The material covered will introduce the framework, analytic approaches, databases and settings available for studies addressing patient preferences and satisfaction, practice patterns, clinical interventions and strategies that constitute the content of health care. The course focuses on the use of patient populations and databases as laboratories for the generation of new knowledge and information.

PM 433 Aging & Public Health
The 20th century demographic transition to an aging society is a universal phenomenon with profound implications for present and future disease patterns and health services. The first half of this course provides students with a working knowledge of major epidemiological studies of disease and disability associated with the aging population and of the application of contemporary public health and medical care strategies to these emerging patterns. Concepts to be covered include compression of morbidity, functional status assessment, active life expectancy, essential roles of public health. In the second part of the course, epidemiological and public health approaches to aging will be applied to case studies, (including local examples) of selected major disabling conditions including influenza, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disease, mental health, tobacco, hypertension and other risk factors. Student evaluation will be based upon several written assignments and presentations during the course and a final paper.

PM 441 Conducting Research with Elderly Persons: Methods and Applications
The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with unique and prevalent issues, problems, difficulties, and challenges of conducting health services research with elderly persons, and to provide students with approaches and tools to address those issues and problems in order to successfully conceptualize, plan, carry out, and conclude research with the aged. This course will focus almost exclusively on person’s age 65 and older, with special attention being paid to the old-old (those age 85 and over), people with cognitive impairment, and residents of nursing homes
.
PM 442 Nutritional Epidemiology
The course is designed to give the students the tools to critically review the nutritional epidemiological literature and to conduct epidemiological studies of diet, nutrition, and disease. Concepts on nutritional epidemiology will be applied to nutrition and nutritional-related disorders prevalent in the United States and globally (e.g., Descriptive epidemiology of breast-feeding, new national and international growth curves, examples of the role of diet in cancer prevention). The course will be focused mainly but not exclusively on maternal and child health issues. Prerequisites: introductory courses in epidemiology and statistics.

PM 443 Maternal & Child Health Epidemiology
This course will provide an overview of current topical and methodological issues in maternal and child health epidemiology. Topics covered will include: identification of MCH indicators, epidemiological performance and organization of MCH services, analytic techniques in MCH epidemiology, race and ethnicity, maternal, fetal, infant, and child mortality analysis, morbidity in pregnancy and infancy, social determinants of MCH problems, and perinatal regionalization. Students will be expected to use the Internet in the conduct of coursework. Guest speakers will present practical applications of MCH epidemiology in public health and medicine.

PM 451 Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Infectious diseases are a main contributor to global morbidity and mortality. Through course readings and small group discussion, participants will gain a better understanding of the distribution, transmission and pathogenesis of infectious diseases, and how this knowledge can be applied to the prevention and control of pathogens.

PM 453 Child & Adolescent Health Epidemiology
Infectious diseases are a main contributor to global morbidity and mortality. Through course readings and small group discussion, participants will gain a better understanding of the distribution, transmission and pathogenesis of infectious diseases, and how this knowledge can be applied to the prevention and control of pathogens.

PM 462 Genetic Epidemiology
The goal of genetic epidemiology is to understand the genetic etiology of disease through the study of genetic characteristics and their interactions with environmental exposures. Part I of this course will cover relevant theories in population genetics, risk models for genetic diseases, and statistical concepts used in human genetics. During Part II of the course students will be engaged in both active discussion and investigation of problem sets related to: cancer genetics, association studies to map disease genes, using genetic tests for screening and the incorporation of age-of-onset and environmental covariates in linkage analysis.

PM 477 Advanced SAS Programming for Statistical Analyses
The purpose of this course is to provide students with advanced knowledge and experience in SAS programming for epidemiologic methods. This course is an extension of PM 410 Introduction to Data Management and Data Analysis Using SAS and is not recommended for beginning SAS software users. The topics include multivariate data preparation, ANOVA, linear and logistic regression, and survival analysis using Kaplan-Meier techniques and Cox proportional hazards modeling. Prerequisites: PM 410 (or PM 429) Introduction to SAS and one semester of graduate level statistics or permission of instructor.

PM 481 Public Health Practice
This course focuses upon systematic approaches to public health decision-making and upon the role of evidence, method, and community collaboration in the practice of public health. Of particular interest in this class is the collection and assessment of evidence in public health practice and of the central role of public health data in the assessment process. The class will draw significantly upon local (Monroe County) experience in the assessment of community need through the Health Action community coalition process, through the Health Action Report Card surveillance and tracking approach, and through case studies of specific areas of public health where evidence has been systematically evaluated and published (immunization, cardiovascular disease prevention, lead poisoning prevention, and child health and nutrition). Students will gain experience using Healthy People 2010 indicators and the corresponding Data 2010 surveillance system for tracking HP 2010. Students will gain competency in using risk statistics (e.g. population attributable risk percent, summary odds ratios) as tools for prioritizing health problems. Finally, students will gain appreciation for the process of developing community-public health partnerships to deploy public health interventions.

WRITING REQUIREMENT

Choose 1 of the following:

PM 449 The Writing Workshop
This two-part course helps students gain proficiency as writers. The course addresses language usage, outlines, quotations, transitions and the use of sources. The course will also help students eliminate jargon, advance an argument effectively, and develop skills to focus on audience, message and purpose. The course includes three required seminars with the instructor. A sm aller group will be chosen, based on evaluation of writing assignments, to work individually with the instructor on projects ranging from papers for other classes, review articles and independent research.

PM 478 Workshop in Scientific Communication
A non-credit course required of all Rochester Clinical Research Curriculum trainees, PhD and postdoctoral fellows. This workshop series will address the principle elements of scientific presentation and communication such as: the preparation of abstracts and journal articles, poster development, manuscript review and critique, oral presentations, working with the media/public relations.

2 ELECTIVE COURSES

ESSAY REQUIREMENT

Master’s Essay – 6 credit hours (equivalent to 2 courses) or 12 credit hours (equivalent to 4 courses) for 3/2 students.