Courses
The course descriptions below are correct to the best of our knowledge as of August 2012. 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 IH 805: Controversies in Global Control and Eradication of Infectious Diseases
This is an advanced level seminar course. It focuses on areas of active controversy regarding past and current eradication/control campaigns. This class will consider the biological, epidemiological, sociological, political, ethical, and programmatic features that allowed the smallpox eradication campaign to succeed. Other diseases that are currently candidates for global eradication campaigns that will be covered in this class include polio, measles, malaria, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, and dracunculiasis. Public health policy decisions ultimately rest on basic and clinical scientific research. This course approaches this topic through a series of focused readings drawn from the primary scientific literature. The goal is to prepare students to better participate in these debates themselves. -
SPH IH 808: Research Proposal Development: A Practical Approach to Team Grant Writing
The main objective of this course is to equip students to develop a research project in a developing country. The scope of the proposal can include baseline data collection for needs assessment, monitoring and evaluation of an existing program, or identification of predictors associated with health or disease outcomes. Students learn practical skills associated with writing a proposal including creating project objectives, sampling methods, calculating sample-size, developing a work plan and budgeting. Students work in teams throughout the semester to develop the proposal. Proposals from this class have successfully competed for funding. -
SPH IH 811: Applied Research Methods in International Health
The objective of this course is to teach student teams how to collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data to answer study questions. Student teams will conduct a research study with multiple research methods including a cross-sectional survey and their choice from a variety of qualitative methods. The scope of the research questions addressed will be limited to minimal risk research conducted with students on the Boston University Medical Campus in the space of a semester. Each team will design a questionnaire, administer it, and enter and analyze the data using EpiInfo or other statistical software. In conjunction with the cross-sectional survey, each team will also use some form of qualitative method, such as in-depth interviews or focus group discussions (FGD). The student teams will integrate the results of the cross-sectional survey and the qualitative research and present a report with findings and recommendations to their peers and faculty members. Students completing the course will have the skills to be able to collect and analyze data in a wide variety of settings. -
SPH IH 820: Global Issues in Pharmaceutical Policy and Programming
Pharmaceutical policies are changing rapidly in developing countries. Ensuring access, maintaining quality, and promoting rational drug use are the priorities. This course examines national drug policies, selection issues, medicine pricing and availability, financing, health insurance, donations, and the role of the private sector and approaches to improving drug use. The impact of global treaties and particularly the TRIPS agreement WTO and access to AIDS drugs will be addressed. The course will also examine the role of global and bilateral donor programs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The course will utilize a seminar format and will require substantial reading to prepare for small group discussions and activities. -
SPH IH 854: From Data to Dashboards: Building Excel Skills to Support Health Program Decisions
In these uncertain times, managers need, more than ever, to make sound decisions based on data. Good spreadsheet models are important tools in this process. Build your Excel "toolbox" by learning and applying robust formulas, graphing and dashboarding techniques, and data analysis in a wide range of real-world case study examples, such as cost and utilization analysis, estimation of revenues and expenses, and performance dashboards to monitor and evaluate performance of health interventions. Students will have the opportunity to build their own models to apply to a health service challenge of their choosing. This course is appropriate for upper level MPH students who have basic excel skills. -
SPH IH 870: Managing Disasters and Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
The incidence and severity of public health emergencies due to violent armed conflict and natural disasters continues to affect large numbers of people and even larger amounts of property. Complex humanitarian emergencies (CHEs) now affect most regions of the world, and the violent and chaotic nature of CHEs has produced an enormous burden on relief efforts due to population displacement, morbidity, and mortality. This course prepares participants to function effectively in emergency relief situations. Topics covered include causes and consequences of disasters, initial responses, and meeting basic needs such as food, water, healthcare, and shelter. Specific attention will be paid to potential public health problems and interventions. This program also emphasizes critical field management, coordination, logistical skills, project design, and monitoring and evaluation. Methods to phase out emergency relief efforts and manage the transition to longer-term sustainable development are also explored. -
SPH IH 880: Confronting non-communicable diseases in the developing world: the burden, costs and health systems challenges
A combination of lower fertility rates and changing environmental factors and lifestyles has led to aging populations and epidemics of tobacco addiction, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes, and other chronic ailments, aggravating the persisting burden of infectious diseases in the developing world. This advanced course aims at providing a thorough understanding of the risk factors, epidemiology, burden, and economic consequences of the most prevalent non-communicable diseases and the fundamental policy considerations regarding intervention strategies for their prevention and control in resource constrained settings. This overall goal will be achieved by marrying economic approaches with those of epidemiology, clinical medicine and public health. -
SPH IH 881: Evidence-Based Program Design for Reproductive Health
This course focuses on the evidence underpinning strategies to address major reproductive health RH) problems among adults in developing countries. For each RH problem, we will consider the key factors contributing to possible solutions ? e.g., biological, social, epidemiological, health system, political and technological factors. Topics will include: maternal mortality, cervical cancer, family planning, abortion, HIV/AIDS, and infertility. Students will chose a specific topic and evaluate the evidence base, and write a 15-page program recommendation document for a ministry of health, NGO, or international agency. -
SPH IH 885: Global Trade, Intellectual Property and Public Health
On the broadest level, any person interested in international public health, needs to know about globalization and trade. Globalization rewards creative and technically skilled workers and places its largest pressures on lower-skilled workers. A specific example of globalization is that of India and their embrace of new intellectual property (IP) laws. The implementation of these IP and trade rules lies somewhere between outright opposition to reforming global IP rules and an unthinking acceptance that doing so will encourage biomedical innovation and improved health outcomes. The effects of stronger IP standards on health and innovation in medicines and diagnostics are ambiguous and thus need to be subjected to empirical analysis. This course will explore the complex and ambiguous relationship between global trade, intellectual property and its impact on public health. -
SPH IH 887: Planning and Managing Maternal and Child Health Programs in Developing Countries
This course provides a practical framework to enable students to design, manage, and evaluate services for children and women, with an emphasis on child health. The course covers the major health challenges with a focus on children and explores specific interventions to address these challenges. Topics covered include diarrheal disease, acute respiratory infection, immunization, malaria, micronutrient deficiencies, HIV/AIDS, safe motherhood and neonatal health. The final six weeks of the course will give students the opportunity to identify the technical, political, organizational, and environmental factors necessary for a successful program. Students will work in teams to respond to an RFP for improving the health of women, children, or newborns in a developing country. Teams will attend a bidder?s conference and then prepare and present a written and oral proposal to an outside grants committee. Students cannot take both IH744 and IH887 for MPH degree credit. -
SPH IH 888: Seminar on International Health Policy Issues
This seminar focuses on policy formulation related to public health problems in low- and middle-income countries and is intended for students who have some experience. How is policy formulated in different settings? Who sets the policy agenda? Why do some issues get the attention of policy-makers, while other equally important issues fail to gain traction? And what approaches can be used to improve the chances of a particular policy being adopted? Students will carry out a policy analysis on a policy issue of their choice, using the policy analysis approaches and tools presented in class. -
SPH IH 890: Quantitative Methods & Modeling for Public Health Decision Making
In designing health interventions and programs, decision makers must structure and clarify complex policy issues and explore the implications of different courses of action in the face of dynamic complexity and uncertainty. This advanced course introduces three model-based analytical methods-system dynamics, risk analysis and decision analysis-to equip students with the analytical skills necessary to formulate and use models for policy analysis. The course develops hands-on skills with two practical modeling building and simulation software programs, Stella and Crystal Ball, for application to public health and health care systems problems. Examples of public health applications may include infectious disease control and prevention, such as HIV/AIDS, obesity prevention, drug use, and health effects of exposure to environmental chemicals. The course is suited for students interested in career opportunities in health policy research and analysis. -
SPH LW 709: Healthcare Rationing: Medicine, Markets and Morals
Although health care is rationed in a variety of ways in the United States, Americans, and American politicians in particular, make believe that rationing does not exist. Indeed, efforts at health care reform have often been criticized for leading to "rationing' health care resources, implying that rationing is something evil. The idea that all Americans get the health care they need or that we have limitless resources is obviously not so. What health care is available and to whom is the result of the often invisible choices policy makers make. This course critically explores the health care allocation choices that have been made and will be made in the future. It analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of various rationing methods, the values and moral judgments reflected in each, and the political and financial factors influencing the choice of approach, as well as who should make such choices. Examples of rationing to be discussed include the distribution of organs for transplantation, determining what constitutes "necessary" care under insurance schemes, the use of markets and lotteries as rationing methods, limitations on population screening, the use of age and "social worth" to limit health care to individuals, triage in emergencies, and the utility (or disutility) of cost-benefit analysis for making decisions about the availability and distribution of health care. By the end of the course, students will be able to articulate the range of possible rationing methods and to appropriately apply these methods to different scarce resource circumstances. -
SPH LW 719: Essentials of Public Health Law
Law is an essential tool for creating and implementing public health policies. The goal of this course is to enable students to understand how and when the law can be used to implement health policies and programs. It is designed for students who do not have prior experience or education in law and covers basic legal concepts and the process of decision making by legislative, administrative, and judicial bodies. Students learn how to construct oral and written arguments while analyzing how American law balances the rights of individuals with the interests of government and where appropriate analyzes the ethics of policy choices. By examining constitutional, common-law and statutory rights related to public health and health care students are prepared to compare such rights with those in other countries and in relation to the aspirational rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). -
SPH LW 725: Ethical Issues in Medicine and Public Health
This course reviews the nature and scope of moral dilemmas and problematic decision making in public health, medicine, and health care. After a survey of ethical theory, the course focuses on a broad range of ethical concerns raised by the theory and practice of public health and medicine: the nature of health, disease and illness, health promotion and disease prevention; rights, access, and the limits of health care; the physician-patient relationship; truthtelling and confidentiality. Through a series of case studies, the course examines specific topics: the bioethics movement and its critiques; human experimentation; the role of institutional review boards; the concept and exercise of informed, voluntary consent; abortion, reproduction, genetic counseling and screening; euthanasia, death and dying; ethics committees; and international and cross-cultural perspectives. -
SPH LW 739: Jewish Bioethics
The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to resources for and approaches to Jewish biomedical ethics. Selected issues will be studied in some depth to develop the ability to interpret relevant primary sources and evaluate competing readings of these sources. Attention will be given to different approaches in interpreting and applying Jewish texts and values in addressing contemporary issues. We will then focus on medical ethics and the Holocaust. The historical experience of the Holocaust has had a major impact on contemporary Jewish ethicists. We will examine the relevance of the Nazi doctors, racial hygiene, euthanasia, and genocide for contemporary bioethics. The field of Jewish bioethics affords us the opportunity to explore the complex interface of philosophy, theology, halakha (Jewish law), and secular law and ethics. Students will also consider philosophical approaches in bioethics and their significance for Judaism. This course is taught with CAS RN 439/ GRS RN 739/ STH TX859 at Charles River Campus. -
SPH LW 740: Health and Human Rights
This course is appropriate for graduate, 4+1, and undergraduate students and is taught either at the Charles River Campus or the Medical Campus. Students who have already taken LW721 cannot take LW740 for MPH degree candidate. These students should contact the Health Law Department (617-638-4626) for assistance. Health is closely linked to the realization of human rights. Preventable illness, infant mortality, and premature death, for example, are closely tied to societal discrimination and violation of human rights. This course explores the relationship between human rights and health by examining relevant international declarations in historical context, exploring the meaning of "human rights" and "health," and analyzing specific case studies that illuminate the problems, prospects, and potential methods of promoting health by promoting human rights on the national and international levels. -
SPH LW 751: Public Health Law
This course introduces students to the legal system and to major legal issues and problems confronting the public health professional. By analyzing judicial decisions, students learn about legal analysis and conflict resolution and avoidance. Thus they learn to see the legal system as a tool that can be used to advance, rather than impede, the implementation of specific public health policies. Topics covered include state public health powers, federal activity in public health, medical malpractice, privacy and confidentiality of medical information, mental health law, abortion and sterilization, patients' rights, emergency medical care delivery, legal status of allied health professionals, human experimentation, and rights of the terminally ill. This course is a prerequisite for most other Health Law courses. Students who take this course cannot take LW719 for degree credit. Health Law concentrators must complete this course to fulfill the health law MPH core requirement. -
SPH LW 800: Genetics, Law and Public Health
This seminar is suitable for any student who wants to be prepared to identify and respond to legal and policy issues that arise when genetics is integrated with public health research and practice. Case studies based on practical problems and dilemmas form the basis of in-class exercises and written assignments. Analyzing the circumstances of these cases gives students opportunities to further their understanding of law and to link that understanding to other areas of knowledge while addressing realistic problems and dilemmas. Cases and related course materials cover a variety of circumstances including DNA banking, newborn screening programs, direct-to-consumer testing services, and genetic counseling. -
SPH LW 830: Health Insurance, Health Reform and the Law
The seminar examines the pivotal role of insurance in health reform, health policy and the distribution of health care in the US. We explore how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act affects the design, operation, and regulation of health benefit plans, as well as the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Investigating arguments for and against specific regulations, we learn fundamentals of insurance and whether reforms affect larger principles of law. We also study Massachusetts, the model for federal health reform, and the comparative advantages of federal and state governance. Students explore the changing roles of insurance in the health system by analyzing and comparing federal and state laws governing different health benefit plans (including indemnity insurance, managed care, consumer choice, and health promotion plans), and how reforms affect current law, including state licensure, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Topics include basic concepts of insurance; accepting, managing and shifting financial risk; individual and employer mandates; health insurance exchanges; contracting with providers, employers, and individuals; designing and administering plans; defining benefits; and appeals and remedies. This class meets at BU School of Law and follows the Law School class schedule.
