Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• SPH EP 855: Advanced Epidemiology Seminar: Issues in Study Design
  Graduate Prerequisites: Primarily for doctoral students. MPH students must have completed EP85 4 and have consent of the instructor. - This seminar-style course is intended to deepen students’ knowledge of study design features so that they can better recognize and hopefully either avoid or reduce the influence of common, but at times under-appreciated, sources of biases in measurement, effect estimation, and interpretation. Example topics include case-control studies, study efficiency, measures of effect, exposure misclassification, casual diagrams, and direct and indirect effects. At its essence, epidemiology comprises a set of tools for answering questions in public health. Accordingly, this course also attends to the theoretical frameworks we might use to inform our studies, e.g., what gets asked, what gets measured, what adjustments are made. Each topic entails reading and student-led discussions of methodological papers, historical and recent. Students also develop skills in writing and speaking through classroom discussion, writing assignments, and a written exam.
• SPH EP 857: Design and Conduct of Cohort Studies
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHBS723 & SPHBS730) AND SPH EP 770 or SPH EP 813 or SPH EP 854. - This is a third-level epidemiologic methods course intended for advanced Masters and Doctoral students who desire to build depth and nuance in their understanding of cohort study design and conduct, including how to develop novel questions in existing cohort studies. This course defines cohort broadly, covering well-established cohort studies and novel cohort data sources. For each topic, methodologic readings will be linked back to concrete examples of cohort study design, with special emphasis on practicality.
• SPH EP 858: Design and Conduct of Case-Control Studies
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHEP770 OR SPHEP813 OR SPHEP854) AND SPHBS723 or SPHBS730 - This is a third-level epidemiologic methods course intended for advanced Masters and Doctoral students who desire to build depth in their understanding of case-control study design and conduct, This course will develop practical knowledge of case-control studies within a theoretical framework. It will cover the relationship between cohort and case-control studies and study design issues, including identification of a study base, selection of cases and controls, collection of exposure information, sources of bias, and matching. Published papers will be used to illustrate design, bias, and analytic issues through reading and discussion. Each class includes a lecture and discussion of assigned articles.
• SPH EP 860: Novel Analytical Methods for Epidemiology
  Graduate Prerequisites: Doctoral level standing; must have completed EP854 and have SAS programming skills equivalent to BS805 or above. - This course is intended to introduce doctoral students to several advanced methods in data analysis, with the aim of providing students with the ability to recognize situations in which the use of such methods may be beneficial, knowledge of the basic methods needed to conduct analyses, and an understanding of the strengths and limitations of each method. The course covers approximately five to six analytic methods in a series of 2- or 3-session modules. Topics may vary slightly in different semesters; examples of the types of methods covered include propensity scores, marginal structural models, simulation methods, quantitative bias analysis, instrumental variables, machine learning and Bayesian analysis. Hands-on sessions in the classroom, homework assignments, and a final data analysis project provide students with practice in the conduct of analyses using these methods.
• SPH EP 861: Quantitative Bias Analysis Methods for Epidemiologic Research
  Graduate Prerequisites: SPH EP854 and SAS at the level of SPH BS805 - This course covers a novel approach to dealing with systematic error in epidemiologic research called quantitative bias analysis. Quantitative bias analysis allows users account for sources of systematic error analytically rather than through speculation on the impact. Quantitative bias analysis allows users to make adjustments to measures of effect for confounding, information bias and selection bias by making assumptions (informed by data typically using validation studies) about the nature of the bias to bias-adjusted point estimates and create uncertainty intervals that account for total study error. The course will cover three types of bias analysis: simple, multidimensional and probabilistic. Exercises in Excel and SAS/R will allow students to practice the methods, adapt them to problems they face and present the results clearly.
• SPH EP 862: Simulated Problems for Learning Epidemiology (SimPLE)
  Graduate Prerequisites: Successful completion of EP854 (or permission of instructor for PhD students not in the department of epidemiology). Competency in SAS as demonstrated by successful completion of EP815, EP817, BS805, - This course will challenge students to think more deeply about the epidemiologic concepts they have learned in their methods courses and provide them with the skills to conduct simulation studies to be able to further their understanding of these concepts. Students will learn to simulate datasets from a directed acyclic graph (DAG) describing the problem or phenomenon of interest and learn how to vary the parameters of the simulation to gain a deeper insight into the problem. Students will also learn to derive the answers to questions about epidemiologic methods in cases where they do not know how to solve the problem analytically. This is a hands-on course where we spend most of the time programming simulations and discussing what we learn from them and many of the questions we seek to answer are ones posed by students in class.
• SPH EP 911: Directed Studies in Epidemiology
  Directed Studies provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a SPH faculty member. Students may register for a 1, 2, 3, or 4-credit directed study. Arrangements are made directly with a full time SPH faculty member. Studies to be completed with an adjunct faculty member must be approved by and assigned to the Department chairperson. Students must complete a paper registration form and have a directed study proposal form signed by the faculty member with whom they are working. Section numbers are assigned by the SPH Registrar's Office. Students are limited to eight (8) credits of directed study, directed research or practicum during their MPH education.
• SPH EP 912: Directed Research in Epidemiology
  Directed Research 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. To register, students must submit a paper registration form and signed directed research 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 EP 980: Continuing Study
  Graduate Prerequisites: MS or doctoral candidates in Epidemiology who have completed all academic course requirements for degree and are completing their thesis or dissertation. - PhD in Epidemiology students who have completed all academic course requirements, must register for Continuing Study every Fall and Spring semester until they have successfully defended their theses/dissertations and have graduated from SPH. Students are charged the equivalent of two credits of tuition, student health insurance, and all relevant fees, and are certified as full time.
• SPH GH 701: Global Health Storytelling
  Global Health Storytelling is an interdisciplinary class for journalism and public health students who have a passionate interest in crafting rich, nuanced, compelling narratives about global health for a broad audience. This is a class for public health students who want to communicate public health science, practice, and policies in the style of an Atlantic Monthly article, a New York Times feature, or an NPR audio story. Likewise, it is a class for journalism or other communication-focused students interested in building public health knowledge. Students will learn from global health and journalism professors, guest speakers, and one another through class-room based instruction and individual reporting projects.
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  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
• SPH GH 715: ARV Management Issues in Low Resource Settings
  Graduate Prerequisites: For MPH students who have completed > 16 credits or all four MPH core courses. Successful HIV/AIDS treatment programs rely on consistent, uninterrupted supplies of antiretrovirals (ARVs), appropriate ARV prescribing, retention of patients in treatment programs, and a high level of adherence by patients. Ineffective ARV management leads to treatment failures, ARV resistance, illness, and death. This course is activity-based, and will engage students in the nuts and bolts of each stage of HIV treatment provision, with in-depth exercises applied to one country. Students will gain practical knowledge and skills to understand and manage testing and treatment initiation, retention in care, treatment adherence, and challenges related to ARV cost and scale-up. Guest lecturers with relevant expertise will be invited to speak on specific topics. If possible, one session will be devoted to a field visit to an adherence clinic to learn directly about the ARV program management issues faced by practitioners and patients.
• SPH GH 722: Supply Chain Management for Improved Health System Performance
  Supply chain logistics is an important aspect of public health programs, and an area that is often unappreciated. The journey from manufacturer to a patient in a remote rural area is a complicated and fascinating management challenge. Global COVID-19 vaccine supply and distribution has posed one of the greatest logistical public health challenges of our time. This course provides a practical introduction to the core tenets of health commodity supply chain management (SCM), including system design, assessment, quantification, procurement, inventory management, and logistics management information systems. Using the "Access Framework," students will gain foundational knowledge, including analytical skills, and apply that knowledge in hands-on exercises, class discussions, and real-life case studies. This course incorporates a strong experiential component to enhance learning including simulations and interviewing subject area experts about current supply chain management innovations and challenges.
• SPH GH 743: Implementing Health Programs in Developing Countries: Making Programs Work
  Graduate Prerequisites: For advanced MPH students (>16 credits completed). Recommend completion of GH744 prior to taking GH743, but not required. - As professionals working in different settings, we often end up running programs we did not design, which are under-financed, and which face enormous implementation challenges. In this course, students will work with a specifically identified health program that is currently being implemented. They will conduct systems analyses, undertake problem solving exercises, and propose solutions to real implementation challenges in the field. Ultimately, they will be able to prioritize the interventions necessary to effectively run a complex health program in such diverse situations as urban slums and dispersed rural areas in a variety of settings and be prepared to plan the actions to effectively run those programs. This course is directed towards students in the health management emphasis area and is not suitable for students in their first semester of studies. Students who will particularly benefit from this course are both U.S. and international students who plan to manage programs in different settings, including in low and middle income countries.
• SPH GH 745: Monitoring and Evaluation of Global Health Programs
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHPH717) or instructor permission. - here is consensus within the global public health community that inadequate project monitoring and evaluation (M&E) represents a major constraint in programmatic efforts to address the problems we face. The absence of sound M&E processes in large numbers of public health projects, despite continued evidence of their value in assessing and improving project performance, suggests that many project planners and managers may not yet have the necessary skills or understanding to develop and operate such systems. This course is designed to help address this need. This course provides a detailed analysis of program monitoring and evaluation with an emphasis on public health and nutrition-related projects. By reading relevant literature and using case studies, students will gain an understanding of the language and tools of program evaluation. The course will focus both on theory and practical utilization, and will consist of presentations, discussions, and applied exercises involving the preparation and critiquing of monitoring and evaluation plans. The course has a required, non-credit lab that is scheduled in a different time slot than the class.
• SPH GH 747: Strategic Planning and Resource Mobilization
  Organizational sustainability is achieved when an organization has the leadership, human resources and talent, financial capabilities, and change strategies necessary to navigate the challenges that organizations face every day. Organizational sustainability is anchored in a robust strategic plan and is supported by resource mobilization. Resource mobilization ensures that an organization can strategically position human, financial, and material resources to meet their organizational goals and fulfill their overall mission. Using a variety of adult learning strategies, students will learn how to move from a strategic plan to a resource mobilization plan, incorporating a mix of methods to achieve results. Over the course of the semester, students will act as public health consultants to develop a strategic plan for a client organization which will include internal and external inputs, goals, strategies, success measures, and a tactical plan for resource mobilization.
• SPH GH 750: Gender, Sexuality, Power, and Inequality in Global Health
  This course explores the socio-cultural, economic and political contexts in which people live their lives and how these, and local and large-scale forces of structural violence (inequity, marginalization and gender discrimination) impact health and development. Course readings and discussions examine how these forces constitute immediate and fundamental risk factors and must therefore be considered and addressed as part of any effort to improve public health. Course format: seminar with topics introduced by professor and guest lecturers.
• SPH GH 755: Managing Disasters and Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
  The incidence and severity of public health emergencies due to violent conflict and natural disasters is rising and are increasingly devastating to individuals, communities and their property. This course expose students to various aspects of disasters and humanitarian emergencies globally. Course readings and discussions explore the causes and consequences of disasters and humanitarian emergencies including population displacements. Students learn immediate rapid response, long-term public health interventions and disaster risk reduction and preparedness. Given the ever-changing nature of humanitarian emergencies, course readings and lectures are supplemented with weekly discussions of the most current events in the field. Experts share their experiences on how to prepare for personal involvement of living and working in relief situations.
• SPH GH 756: Analytical Methods for Pharmaceutical Systems Assessment
  Graduate Prerequisites: PH740 or consent of instructor - This course aims to develop skills essential to assessing and evaluating pharmaceutical policy and the performance of pharmaceutical programs. Students will learn to develop a pharmaceutical country profile, analyze medicine prices and availability, apply technical guidelines, and use other assessment tools and methods in the pharmaceutical sector. Students will also develop skills to undertake a sampling exercise, use qualitative methods, and review and write technical reports. Students will use instruments which are already developed with a focus on implementation issues, analysis of data collected and awareness of strength and limitation of each method applied. The course will introduce students to the many resources which exist to help understand pharmaceutical sectors, and prepare them to work in a national or sub national pharmaceutical system.
• SPH GH 760: Foundations in Global Health
  Achieving global health requires an understanding how politics, economics, ethnicity, gender and culture affect individual and population-wide health care actions, systems, and strategies. Through this course, students will develop skills to analyze the magnitude of global morbidity and mortality, the causes and consequences of global health problems, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Students will learn about historic and current power imbalances including colonialism that shape the global health architecture and their profound effects on national health policies and outcomes. Student will develop and implement sustainable and evidence-based multi-sectoral interventions and the fundamentals of monitoring and evaluation techniques to global health programs, policies, and outcomes. Course work will provide students opportunities to apply these foundational skills in analyzing global health challenges and develop cross-cultural awareness and resourcefulness in solving problems that they may encounter in their professional careers.
• SPH GH 762: Essentials of Economics and Finance for Global Health
  This course provides an introduction to health economics, with an emphasis on evaluating costs and cost-effectiveness of public health interventions and programs in resource-constrained settings, such as developing countries. Issues of financing to pay for effective and cost-effective naturally follow. The course does not assume prior training in economics, and provides the conceptual underpinnings of health economics but emphasizes skills needed to complete applied evaluations in real world settings. Case studies, based on actual studies completed by faculty, focus on practical applications.