Courses
The course descriptions below are correct to the best of our knowledge as of August 2011. Instructors reserve the right to update and/or otherwise alter course descriptions as necessary after publication. The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. The Course Rotation Guide lists the expected semester a course will be taught. Paper copies are also available in the BUSPH Registrar’s office. Please refer to the published schedule of classes for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.
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SPH EH 780: Great Calamities and their Consequences for Public Health
Current public health practice in the United States evolved in response to public health calamities. Epidemics of infectious disease, mass poisonings, and industrial disasters have served as catalysts for new regulations and institutions of public health. For example, the sulfanilamide tragedy of 1937 was the catalyst for the current drug approval process. In addition, public and private responses to calamities have fueled the development of scientific knowledge and epidemiologi methods. For example, John Snow's investigation of the London cholera outbreak of 1854 demonstrated the utility of observational epidemiology. This course acquaints students with those calamities of primarily the past 200 years that were most consequential for public health practice. The emphasis is on each calamity's impact on knowledge of disease causation and control and on the development of public health institutions and regulations. -
SPH EH 783: Applying Public Health Skills in the Community
This award-winning course provides an introduction to the hands-on application of public health principles and skills in communities. Topics include water-borne diseases, food safety, air quality, health hazards in housing, and emergency preparedness. Emphasis is on practical issues including inspection procedures, code enforcement, disease investigations, and policy development. Students engage with practitioners through guest lectures and in the conduct of their course projects. Knowledge and skills gained are applicable at the local, state, federal, and international levels. -
SPH EH 804: Exposure Assessment
The process of assessing exposure is a critical component of occupational and environmental epidemiology, of determining compliance with health and safety regulations, and in conducting human health risk assessments. This course in exposure assessment covers the basic concepts and methods of study design, data collection, and data analysis/interpretation. Students analyze relevant case studies and conduct a study in which they develop their own exposure assessment strategy, collect and analyze data, prepare a final report, and present their findings. -
SPH EH 805: Environmental Health Science, Policy and Law
This course uses a case-study approach to discuss current and historic controversies in environmental and occupational health policy making. Our specific focus is on the examination of how scientific information (e.g., risk assessments, exposure analyses, epidemiologic studies, clinical case reports,) is used (or is not used) in policy decisions. Students will learn how environmental health laws and regulations are made and challenged, and gain experience looking up laws, regulations and court decisions. Case studies feature international treaties, federal and state court cases, laws, regulations, and policies. Topic areas include air and water quality, hazardous waste, environmental justice, worker safety, and the precautionary principle. -
SPH EH 806: Development and the Environment
This course explores many critical environmental health issues that are linked to patterns of industrial and market development, with a special focus on developing countries. Specific examples that are discussed include food and agriculture, environmental impacts of industrialization, pest control strategies, and the effects of global climate on health. The course discusses the contestation over ideas, methods, and resources for sustainable development and equitable health outcomes. It emphasizes throughout the relationships between human health, development, and the environment. -
SPH EH 807: Urban Environmental Health
The United Nations estimated that 2008 marked the first time in human history when more than half of the population on the planet lived in urban settings. Although there are many benefits to urbanization, it often comes with significant environmental challenges, both in developed and developing countries. This course examines the types of evidence and methods used to understand the complex health effects of global urbanization, with case examples that include traffic, indoor environmental quality, and hazardous waste. Each case study considers impacts in the developed and developing world, with an emphasis on vulnerable populations, and involves interactions with government and community stakeholders. The course also includes an environmental justice field trip to the Dudley Square neighborhood of Roxbury. Students will select and research a topic on urban environmental health as a final paper and for presentation in class. -
SPH EH 811: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Public Health
This course is an introductory level course for a novice GIS user. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a useful tool in the public health field. This course provides students with the skills needed to apply GIS in their careers. Topics covered include basic mapping, development of geographical datasets, and data analysis from applications of GIS in different disciplines of public health. A substantial portion of the course will be devoted to computer lab sessions. The course will use ArcGIS software. -
SPH EH 840: Intermediate Toxicology
This advanced-level course is an extension in detail and content of EH768. The course uses a case study approach to teach the molecular mechanisms by which compounds exert their toxicity in addition to dose-response analyses that are applicable to regulatory toxicology. The course emphasizes toxicogenetic differences within the human population. Experimental methods from which toxicological data are generated are presented and discussed for each of the case studies. Major topics include cellular mechanisms of action of toxicants as they relate to oncogenesis, neurotoxicology, and immunotoxicology, and the use of these data in regulatory toxicology. -
SPH EH 866: Risk Assessment Methods
Students learn practical application of risk assessment methods to various environmental problems. The focus of the course is on human health risk assessment and teaches students to quantify the risk of adverse health effects from exposures to chemicals in the environment . Students also can apply what they learn to evaluations of biological and radiological exposures. The strengths and weaknesses of risk assessment methods, the inherent uncertainties in each step, and the relationship between risk assessment and risk management are discussed. -
SPH EH 871: Advanced Topics in Environmental Health
Two and four cedits Environmental Health advanced topics classes may be available in any given semester. See the print or web-based School of Public Health semester schedule for more information pertaining to the advanced topics course for a specific semester. -
SPH EH 914: Environmental Health Doctoral Seminar
This is a doctoral-level seminar course. A new central topic in environmental health is covered each semester. Topics include carcinogenesis/mutagenesis, vaccine development and application, molecular epidemiology, microbial pathogenesis, etc. Each semester proceeds from an historical perspective, and includes both basic science and policy issues. Students are assigned readings from the literature for presentation as a formal lecture, with related discussion to be led by the student. -
SPH EH 961: Directed Studies in Environmental Health
Directed Studies in Environmental Health provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a full-time SPH faculty member. Students may register for 1, 2, 3, or 4 credits. Directed studies with a non-SPH faculty member or an adjunct faculty member must be approved by and assigned to the department chair. To register, students must submit a paper registration form and signed directed study proposal form. Students are placed in a section by the Registrar?s Office according to the faculty member with whom they are working. Students may take no more than eight credits of directed study, directed research, or practica courses during their MPH education. -
SPH EH 980: Continuing Study Fee in Environmental Health
Doctoral students who have completed all academic course requirements, must register for Continuing Study every Fall and Spring semester until they have successfully defended their dissertation and applied to graduate from SPH. Students are charged the equivalent of two credits of tuition and for student health insurance and are certified as full time. EH980 is a non-graded, no academic credit status. All students registered for continuing study will attend EH Doctoral Seminars scheduled by the Director of Doctoral Education for EH. -
SPH EP 713: Introduction to Epidemiology
EP713 is the sole introductory epidemiology course (replacing EP711 and EP712). Epidemiology is a discipline that identifies the determinants of defects, disease and injury in human populations and provides a means of assessing the magnitude of public health problems and the success of interventions designed to control them. The goals of EP713 are to introduce the basic principles and methods of epidemiology and demonstrate their applicability to public health and research and to provide fundamental skills needed to begin to interpret and critically evaluate literature relevant to public health professionals. Topics include measures of disease frequency and effect, epidemiologic study designs, bias, and screening for disease. Class lectures are interspersed with active learning exercises consisting of a mixture of in-class problems, exercises, and discussions, and online and independent learning modules further enable students to achieve the learning objectives. -
SPH EP 721: Survey Methods for Public Health
This course stresses the theory and practice of conducting high quality survey research in health fields. Classes are a mixture of lectures, examples from real world studies, and skill exercises. Topics include research design, question construction, sampling, data collection methods, interviewing, coding, reliability,validity and preparing data for analysis. The course is appropriate for those who will do research as well as those who will be research consumers. -
SPH EP 730: Epidemiology of Vaccine Preventable Diseases
This course will provide students with a thorough understanding of the epidemiology and control of vaccine-preventable diseases. This will be accomplished by focusing on a different vaccine-preventable disease each week, and using that disease to illustrate epidemiologic principles and methods related to measuring vaccine efficacy and safety, overall impact, herd effects, special populations, adverse reactions, and public acceptability. Emphasis will be placed on current developments, outbreaks, controversies, study designs, and sources of bias. This course combines short lectures with in-class discussions and will provide students with practice and feedback in the critical review and design of epidemiologic studies. -
SPH EP 740: Introduction to Epidemiology of Aging
This 2-credit course introduces public health students to major research topics regarding age-related diseases, disorders, and disabilities, as well as the special considerations in the design and execution of epidemiologic studies in this field. The main objectives of each session are to 1) use web-based or public-use data on the incidence, prevalence, risk factors, and health consequences of the disease or condition to describe why it is important to study in elderly adults; 2) critically review 1-2 articles to understand the current state of knowledge on the topic; and 3) examine the special methodological issues that conducting studies of the topic in an elderly study population pose. These objectives will be met by brief student presentations each week of the epidemiology of the disease/condition, lectures by researchers who are performing studies on that condition, and journal club discussions of relevant articles that students will critique. Students will synthesize this information in a short (8-10 page) grant proposal for a study on the prevention or treatment of a disease/condition that affects elderly adults. -
SPH EP 745: Pharmacoepidemiology
Pharmacoepidemiologic principles of study design and interpretation will be illustrated in a case-study format of real world examples. Topics include drug regulation, the study of intended and unintended effects, postmarketing surveillance, and monitoring for birth defects. The goal is for students to be able to evaluate the epidemiologic evidence related to drug safety using historical and recent examples like thalidomide, hormone replacement therapy, and Vioxx. -
SPH EP 751: Cardiovascular Epidemiology
The goal of this course is to enable students to understand major aspects of cardiovascular epidemiology and current strategies for primary and secondary prevention of major cardiovascular diseases (i.e. stroke, heart attack, heart failure or hypertension). The course concentrates on physiologic mechanisms leading to atherosclerosis; traditional and novel CHD risk factors; prediction models for CVD; and the role of lifestyle, dietary, and genetic factors on the development of CVD. In addition, relevant historical breakthrough and current controversies in CVD are discussed using the latest publication from lay press and peer-reviewed journals. A fair amount of time is devoted to acquiring skills in scientific writing and data interpretation. These latter skills are used by the students to design and complete a CVD epidemiology project on a topic of their choosing. Each student (group of students) then presents his/her completed project in class during the last 2 sessions of the course. The course is taught by the course Director and other senior investigators who are experts in different areas of cardiovascular disease. -
SPH EP 752: Cancer Epidemiology
This course provides an overview of the important concepts fundamental to the understanding, design, and conduct of cancer epidemiology studies. The course commences with the descriptive epidemiology of cancer, including time trends in incidence and mortality, and geographic and demographic variation in cancer rates. An overview of the biology of cancer, and a review of the major epidemiologic concepts critical to cancer epidemiology is covered. The descriptive and analytic epidemiology of major cancer sites, including breast, lung, colon, prostate, cervix and melanoma, is discussed, as well as major risk factors for cancer, including tobacco, nutrition, infections, and environmental exposures. The course format consists of a series of lectures by faculty and guests, discussion sessions, and directed readings from the current literature. Students are required to pursue a cancer-related topic of their choosing in depth, developing a proposal for an epidemiologic study that will further current knowledge based on their literature review of the topic.
