PhD in Health Services Research and Policy

Health Systems Research and Policy

This track focuses on the health care system and on the interrelatedness of its component parts, including health insurance, providers (e.g. hospitals, physicians, nursing homes) and public regulatory bodies. Economic and statistical techniques will be taught enabling students to analyze the relationship between the system structure and system performance including the cost, quality and accessibility of care.

The following is what a typical program of study might look like. For the current requirements for the Ph.D. students should consult the Graduate Student Handbook and their advisors.

Year 1

Fall

PM 463 Introduction to Mathematical Statistics
PM 464 Introduction to Regression Analysis
PM 421 Introduction to the US Health Care System
ECO 207 Microeconomics (ECO 471 could be substituted at student’s request)
PM 410 Introduction to Data Management and Data Analysis Using SAS
Alternating year 1 & 2: PM 420 - Politics & policy or elective
PM 428 Graduate workshops/departmental seminar series

Spring

PM 464 Introduction to Regression Analysis (Continued from Fall)
PM 465 Applied Multivariate Analysis
Alternating year 1 & 2: PM 483 Advanced Health Economics - Part I or PM 456 Advanced Health Economics II
PM 412 Survey Research
PM 448 Policy Analysis
PM 428 Graduate workshops/departmental seminar series
PM 484 Medical Decision Making and Effectiveness Research
Alternating year 1 & 2:
PM 483 Advanced Health Economics - Part I or PM 456 Advanced Health Economics II: The Industrial Organization of Health Care Markets

Year 2

Fall

PM 4l5 Introduction to Epidemiology
Alternating year 2 & 3 - PM 446 Advanced Multivariate Statistical Methods or elective
Alternating year 1 & 2 PM 420 - Politics and Policies or elective
IND 50l Ethics in Research (0 credit hour)
PM 428 Graduate workshops/departmental seminar series

Spring

BST 465 Design of Clinical Trials
PM 416 Advanced Epidemiology
PM 438 Practical Skills in Grant Writing
Workshop in Scientific Communication
PM 428 Graduate workshops/departmental seminar series

Summer 2/3 Comprehensive exam

Year 3

Alternating year 2 & 3 - PM 446 Advanced Multivariate Statistical Methods or elective

3rd year project, leading to dissertation
PM 428 Graduate workshop/departmental seminar series
Teaching assistantship

Year 4/5

PM 428 Graduate workshop/seminar series

List of Possible Electives

PM 413 Field Epidemiology
PM 417 Molecular Epidemiology
PM 418 Epidemiologic Transition in Translation
PM 433 Epidemiology and Public Health of Aging
PM 436 Health Policy
PM 440 Legal Issues in Health Care
PM 441 Conducting Research with Older Persons
PM 442 Nutritional Epidemiology
PM 443 Analytic Methods in Maternal and Child Health
PM 454 Global Public Health Informatics
PM 458 Introduction to Qualitative Research
PM 479 Health, Medicine and Social Reform
PM 480 Changing Concepts of Health & Illness
PM 482 Clinical Evaluation and Outcomes Research

Third Year for all Tracks

All doctoral students, in the third year complete a distinct research project, to be presented at a Graduate Research Workshop. The project is intended to help students integrate the methods they acquire during their discipline-based study with issues in health care and policy and analysis.

Commonly, but not universally, this project could form the basis for the student's dissertation, but it would have to be brought to fruition and completion as a distinct project here. This project would have magnitude greater than that for "a course" but less than a doctoral thesis.