School of Public Health

Mission

To improve the health of local, national, and international populations, particularly the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerable, through excellence and innovation in education, research, and service.

Effective Fall 2011

This website is intended to be a description of the policies, academic programs, degree requirements, and general course offerings in effect for the 2011/2012 academic year. Students matriculating in this academic year will be responsible for the curriculum requirements described within this Bulletin throughout their academic tenure at BUSPH.

Boston University and the School of Public Health reserve the right to change the policies, procedures, curricula, or any other matter in this publication and to cancel programs and courses with appropriate notice. This publication is not intended to be a contractual agreement nor a guarantee of courses or programs described herein.

Boston University School of Public Health
715 Albany Street, Talbot Building
Boston, Massachusetts 02118-2526
Telephone: 617-638-4684
sph.bu.edu

Program Descriptions and Degree Requirements

Boston University School of Public Health, a Council on Education for Public Health accredited school, offers a full array of programs and degrees designed to provide students with a comprehensive, well-rounded education in all facets of public health. The School offers educational opportunities to students who wish to pursue different levels and approaches to public health education, from the professional master’s and doctor of public health to the specialized academic master of science and doctor of philosophy programs. The School also offers specialized certificate programs and dual degree programs with other graduate schools at Boston University.

Master of Public Health (MPH) degree concentrations:

• Biostatistics
• Environmental Health
• Epidemiology
• Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights
• Health Policy & Management
• International Health
• Maternal & Child Health
• Social & Behavioral Sciences

Master of Science (MS)

• Environmental Health
• Epidemiology
• Health Services Research

Doctor of Public Health (DrPH)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

• Environmental Health
• Epidemiology
• Health Services Research

Dual Degree Programs

• Law and Public Health (JD/MPH)
• Health Care Management (MBA/MPH)
• Global Health Management (MBA/MPH)
• Medicine and Public Health (MD/MPH), with option for BA/MD students
• Medical Sciences and Public Health (MA/MPH)
• Social Work and Public Health (MSW/MPH)

Specialized Programs

• Boston Consortium
• Peace Corps/Master’s International Program
• The Pharmaceuticals Program

Undergraduate Programs

• Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Health (BA/MPH)
• Bachelor of Science and Public Health (BS/MPH)
• Public Health Minor
• Undergraduate Courses

Degree Programs in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

• Master of Arts in Biostatistics (MA)
• Doctor of Philosophy in Biostatistics (PhD)

MPH Competencies

The School’s competencies ensure that students have the skills and knowledge-base required of public health professionals.  By the end of their MPH program, the graduate will be able to:

Biostatistics

• Interpret statistical results, tables and figures from public health literature;
• Evaluate the methodological strength of published public health research papers on the basis of the appropriateness of statistical methods, internal validity, and the extent to which the results can be generalized;
• Develop research questions and select appropriate outcome variables to address important public health problems;
• Distinguish between different study designs (e.g., comparison of independent groups, association between measures) and different measurement scales (e.g. continuous, categorical) and select the appropriate analytic method for data arising from these different research situations;
• Generate appropriate descriptive statistics to summarize public health data; and
• Carry out and present results from basic statistical analyses of data relating to important public health problems.

Environmental Health

• Describe the relationship between the health of the environment and the health of human populations;
• Identify direct and indirect human health effects of major environmental and occupational hazards associated with industry, agriculture, and development;
• Describe genetic, physiologic and psychosocial factors that affect susceptibility to adverse health outcomes following exposure to environmental hazards;
• Develop a model of environmental-disease relationships;
• Articulate major approaches to controlling environmental hazards by regulatory programs, guidelines and authorities at the local, state, federal, and international levels;
• Describe the steps in current environmental health risk assessments methods;
• Specify approaches for assessing, preventing, and controlling environmental health hazards and exposures;
• Explain the general modes of action in response to various biological, chemical, and physical hazard exposures;
• Explain methods to ensure safe supplies of drinking water;
• Outline important social disparities in environmental exposures and health impacts within the U.S. and between the more and less developed countries of the world; and
• Discuss various risk management and risk communication approaches.

Epidemiology

• Explain the evolution of concepts about the cause and prevention of disease and the importance of studying the factors associated with outcomes in a systematic way in human populations;
• Describe and give examples of the role of surveillance systems in public health;
• Identify surveys and data sets that are available for public health-related research;
• Distinguish among descriptive, intervention, and observational studies, with respect to explaining disease etiology or therapeutic efficacy;
• Calculate and interpret measures of disease frequency and measures of effect and choose appropriate measures for different hypotheses, study designs, or populations;
• Control for confounding in designing a study or analyzing data and explain the advantages and disadvantages of these strategies for different hypothesis or study designs;
• Compute and interpret adjusted rates using direct standardization to control for confounding;
• Interpret the results of a stratified analysis in order to identify confounding and/or effect measure modification;
• Explain effect measure modification and identify an effect measure modifier using stratification;
• Determine whether a program meets the public health standards for disease screening;
• Evaluate the validity of a study with respect to the impact of chance, selection bias, measurement error, misclassification, and confounding on the measure of effect; and
• Distinguish between association and a causal relationship, and apply Hill’s guidelines and the sufficient-component cause model.

Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights

• Identify substantive principles of law relevant to public health programs;
• Distinguish legal issues from moral, ethical, policy, or political issues;
• Interpret public health statutes and regulations;
• Identify the legal principles established in court decisions and apply those principles to novel factual situations;
• Describe the structure, function, and operation of the United States legal system;
• Discuss the scope and limits of governmental authority to protect the public health; and
• Discuss legal issues raised by public health policies.

Health Policy & Management

• Describe and provide examples of the main issues confronting health care delivery, including access, cost, caregiver configuration, and appropriateness/quality;
• Analyze questions of policy, financing, care delivery, management, and politics related to each of these problems;
• Critically assess the main competing views of the causes of the major problems;
• Identify, filter, and marshal relevant data/evidence to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the competing solutions to problems of health care delivery and finance;
• Explain the main political and economic forces influencing health care financing and delivery and the strategic dilemmas presented by these forces;
• Identify the principal challenges facing the future of health care financing and delivery, and present reasonable responses to each contingency; and
• Trace interactions among the various problems and their solutions—and identify through systems thinking the ways in which attacking one problem might exacerbate or ameliorate another.

Social & Behavioral Sciences

• Identify the causes of social and behavioral factors that affect health of individuals and populations;
• Identify basic theories, concepts, and models from a range of social and behavioral disciplines that are used in public health research and practice;
• Identify individual, organizational, and community concerns, assets, resources and deficits for social and behavioral science interventions;
• Identify critical stakeholders for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health programs, policies and interventions;
• Describe steps and procedures for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health programs, policies and interventions;
• Describe the role of social and community factors in both the onset and solution of public health problems;
• Describe the merits of social and behavioral science interventions and policies;
• Apply evidence-based approaches in the development and evaluation of social and behavioral science interventions;
• Apply ethical principles to public health program planning, implementation, and evaluation; and
• Specify multiple targets and levels of intervention for social and behavioral science programs and/or policies.