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 GH 815: Methods for Impact Evaluation
  Graduate Prerequisites: SPH PH717 and GH745 and a statistical computing course, either BS723 o r BS730 - This four-credit course provides students with a set of theoretical and methodological skills to evaluate the causal impacts of public health programs and policies. Students learn to use a broad range of evaluation methodologies, including experimental and quasi-experimental designs. They strengthen their skills through critical analysis of published evaluation research. They also apply their skills to design an ideal impact evaluation for an intervention or program of their own choosing. Students taking this course should already be competent in understanding and applying basic quantitative methods for public health research. This is a Third Level course intended for MPH students enrolled in the Monitoring and Evaluation Certificate, and these students are given priority for enrollment. Other interested students may enroll, space permitting.
• SPH GH 854: From Data to Dashboards: Building Excel Skills to Support Health Program Decisions
  Graduate Prerequisites: For upper level MPH students who have basic proficiency with Excel - 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.
• SPH GH 881: Global Reproductive and Perinatal Health
  This course addresses the major reproductive and perinatal health problems facing communities around the world. We will focus on current strategies to address sexual and reproductive health, maternal and newborns health. For each problem, we will consider the fundamental causes and possible solutions--what works/doesn’t work and what is being tried. Topics will include determinants of maternal mortality, perinatal mortality, respectful maternity care, gender-based violence, global abortion and post abortion care, conditions that impact pregnancy outcomes, major causes of global maternal and newborn mortality, initiatives in global maternal and newborn health including research, programming, policy and advocacy. We will also explore ongoing changes in the funding landscape.
• SPH GH 887: Planning and Managing MCH Programs in Developing Countries
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHPH720) Students may not take both GH744 and GH887 for MPH degree credit. - 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 GH 888: Seminar on Global Health Policy Issues
  Graduate Prerequisites: MPH integrated core courses or SPH doctoral students. - Understanding how health policy is shaped—and how it can be changed—is essential for every future public health leader. This course immerses students in the real-world politics behind policy design, agenda setting, and implementation across diverse country contexts. Why do some urgent health issues rise to the top while others are ignored? How do power, interests, and global institutions influence policy making? And what strategies can public health professionals use to push meaningful change? In this hands-on seminar, students learn practical tools from political science and policy analysis to diagnose policy problems, map key actors, assess competing policy options, and navigate the complex politics of implementation and evaluation. Through case studies, interactive discussions, guest speakers, and a multi-part policy analysis project, students develop the skills to design politically feasible solutions to pressing global health challenges, manage stakeholders, and develop effective implementation strategies. By the end of the course, students will be equipped not only to understand global health policy—but to influence it.
• SPH GH 941: Directed Studies in Global Health
  Directed Studies 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 a 1, 2, 3, or 4-credit directed study by submitting an add/drop form and a signed directed study proposal form. Students who are completing the culminating experience project must register for GH943. Directed studies with a non-SPH faculty member or an adjunct faculty member must be approved by and assigned to the department chair. Students are placed in a section by the Registrars 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 GH 942: Directed Research in Global Health
  This course provides the opportunity for advanced students to become involved in global health research of a public health nature or to undertake research independently. Arrangements are made with the appropriate full time GH faculty member. Students must submit an add/drop form and a directed research proposal form signed by the supervising faculty. Directed research is a graded, variable credit course (1, 2, 3, or 4 credits). Students may complete a maximum of 8 directed study, directed research or practicum credits during their MPH program.
• SPH LW 740: Health and Human Rights
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHPH719) or consent of instructor. - This course focuses on health and how it 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 830: Health Insurance and the Affordable Care Act
  policy. Health insurance pays for almost all health care in the US, strongly influencing (often dictating) who gets what care and on what terms. The class explores how the Affordable Care Act affects the design, operation, and regulation of health benefit plans, including Medicare, Medicaid, employer-sponsored group plans, and commercial insurance. Investigating contemporary regulations, students learn fundamentals of insurance, where reforms do and do not alter such fundamentals, and how reforms affect larger principles of law and public health.
• SPH LW 840: Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights
  Graduate Prerequisites: SPH PH719 or consent of instructor. - Health law, bioethics, and human rights converge within the field of public health at the national and global levels. This seminar explores the theoretical meaning of this convergence, engages the sources of authority for human rights, law and ethics and uses case studies to examine tools that can make public health professionals more effective in the realms of social justice and equity. Examples include the U.S. laws as well as international standards creating a "right to health;" economic, political and civil rights and their relation to health and health care; reproductive rights and technologies; standards for medical research and informed consent; environmental justice; and framing the end of life as a public health or a human rights issue. This course is taught at BUSPH.
• SPH LW 850: Public Health Law
  Graduate Prerequisites: SPH PH719 or instructor permission. - This discussion-based seminar offers an in-depth examination of how the law impacts health outcomes, with a particular focus on marginalized, minoritized, and underserved populations. Focus primarily, though not exclusively, on case law allows the class to analyze the extent to which courts consider public health principles and empirical research. This helps better understand in what circumstances the judiciary takes account of the lived experiences of the people who their decisions most directly effect. Building off of the legal aspects covered in PH719, this course considers government authority to act in the name of public health, safety, and welfare, and how the evolution of individual rights continues to limit that authority. The material consists of classic public health measures such as vaccination and quarantine, as well as contemporary concerns of gun violence and reproductive justice. Health disparities—including gender, race, and LGBTQ+ disparities—will be especially important. Students will be evaluated based on their preparation and participation each week , along with a written and oral component.
• SPH LW 854: Mental Health Law, Policy & Ethics
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHPH719) or instructor permission. - This discussion-based seminar tackles some of the most complex issues in mental health, such as involuntary confinement, adolescent disorders and decision-making, deinstitutionalization, the right to treatment and the right to refuse treatment, criminalization, substance use disorders, medicalization and the meaning of mental illness, forced treatments, discrimination, confidentiality, research, and professional ethics. The course will focus primarily on legal cases, utilizing these as case studies to explore the intersection of law, policy, and ethics to determine the manner in which we attempt to understand and regulate in the area of mental health. Students will be evaluated based on their preparation and participation each week , along with a written and oral component.
• SPH MC 705: Sexual Health: From Science to Policy
  Our knowledge of sex and sexuality is derived in large part from the sociocultural and religious context of our society and the specific community and families in which we have been raised. In this class we will use a variety of teaching methods to allow you to discover how much you really know about basic sexual health information, including current public health sexual health issues. Then you will acquire an understanding of the issues based on current thinking from the biologic and social sciences. After covering the basics of each topic, we will explore some of the contextual factors, such as history, culture, economics, and politics that affect framing of the issues and discuss the direct public health ramifications. The course will also help you develop your skills in communication, debate, teaching, and podcasting about sexual health from a public health perspective.
• SPH MC 725: Women, Children and Adolescents: A Public Health Approach
  This survey course introduces students to public health theories, methods, and topics central to maternal, child and family health research and practice. Grounded in a life course perspective, this course examines how the health of infants, children, birthing parents, women, and families are shaped by the complex interplay of biologic and social determinants of health, over a lifetime and across generations. Through a case method teaching approach, select current topics tailored to student interest (e.g., asthma, adolescent pregnancy, infant mortality, vaccination, and food access) will be studied in depth and used to illustrate how the most urgent maternal, family and child health outcomes are monitored and addressed through research and practice. Throughout the course, special attention will be given to key drivers of health inequities, as well as multilevel, strengths-based approaches designed to address these. By the end of the course students will be able to formulate an MCH-related public health question, conduct and write a literature review, and craft a policy slide deck. Taking MC 725 is the most common way students introduce themselves to MCH studies and the MCH context certificate.
• SPH MC 750: Disability Justice Through the Life Course: Programs, Policies, and Turning Advocacy to Action
  The course introduces students to issues related to the health and well-being of disabled individuals/individuals living with disabilities across the life course, and to the health and social policies and multi-sectoral programs that impact their quality of life and the achievement of disability justice in the U.S. MC750 progresses from the examination of the legislative framework relevant to this population, to key controversies and conversations related to disability justice, and skills and strategies for advocacy and systems change. Throughout, the course covers diverse types of disabilities, intersectionality and disability identity, and how a deficit-based system of services for disabled people contributes to the inequities experienced by those living with disabilities.
• SPH MC 759: Perinatal and Child Health Epidemiology
  Graduate Prerequisites: SPH PH717 and PH720 or instructor permission. - Issues related to the perinatal period from the framework of epidemiologic methods will be examined in this course through critical review of epidemiologic studies and exploration of measurement, design and data. Key issues to be examined include maternal and infant mortality and morbidity, cesarean birth, preterm birth, breastfeeding and child development, with a special focus on disparities in these outcomes. Participants will review various sources of perinatal epidemiologic data, and will address classification issues and challenges in assessing pregnancy exposures and outcomes related to these data sources. The final course project involves working with fellow students on the development of a poster and an abstract for submission to a national research meeting based on an original analysis of a public database.
• SPH MC 763: Maternal and Child Health Policy Making
  Graduate Prerequisites: SPH PH719 - This course explores the process by which U.S. national and state policymakers allocate resources to mothers and children. Beginning with an analysis of the evolution of U.S. maternal and child health (MCH) policy, it uses case studies of MCH issues such as paid family leave, maternal mortality, breast cancer and child vaccination to examine the special features of legislative, executive, administrative, and judicial policy making in MCH. The course examines how policy making in MCH has traditionally been characterized by the frequent use of mothers and children as political symbols rather than providing actual health benefits. This course is taught in seminar format with weekly readings and student-led discussion.
• SPH MC 775: Social Justice & the Health of Populations: Racism & Other systems of Oppression in the U.S.
  Graduate Prerequisites: MPH Core Curriculum (at minimum, PH720) or evidence of other appropriate public health coursework. The goal of this introductory course is for students to equip themselves with the fundamental knowledge and skills needed to critically examine systemic sources of health inequities, and challenge traditional public health models of addressing them. We examine the impact of systems of oppression, like White supremacy and ableism, on patterns of population health. We study frameworks such as Public Health Critical Race Praxis and Intersectionality, and experiment with their applications for addressing health inequities. We learn from community-led organizations such as ACT UP and the Young Lords to inspire our own public health strategizing. The course is intended for students without substantial exposure to liberative frameworks and actions for health equity. Those who feel they already have strong foundational knowledge around systems of oppression and anti-oppressive public health practices and approaches are encouraged to consult with the instructor before registering.
• SPH MC 783: Substance Use among Minoritized and Marginalized Populations
  This course offers a window into the drivers, patterns, and consequences of substance use among diverse populations throughout the lifecourse. Through assessment of current evidence, reflection and discussion, application of multilevel theoretical frameworks, and engagement with practitioners and researchers, we will explore the complexity of sex, gender, and racial-ethnic differences in substance use and health service utilization. We will review current trends in substance use among different communities, explore specific topics of public health significance (e.g., pregnancy, interpersonal relationships, infectious disease transmission, stigma, and disparities), contrast understandings of substance use acquired through quantitative and qualitative research methods, and critically evaluate the provision of care. This course will provide you with a deeper understanding of the significance and complexity of substance use and related issues among people with diverse identities and backgrounds.
• SPH MC 785: Reproductive Health Advocacy: From Rights to Justice
  This course prepares students to critically re-evaluate, strengthen, and argue their positions on matters related to the control of sex and reproduction. It allows students to focus on an array of issues related to fertility and its regulation among those who can become pregnant, and to use multiple frameworks--public health science, law, racism and oppression in the social history of fertility control, religion and politics--to identify their values and frame and argue their positions for purposes of advocacy. The course begins with an overview of the social and political history of fertility control and current reproductive health services and policies, and proceeds to hands-on conversations with advocates from diverse organizations, and a state house visit. We examine debates at the state and national levels in preparation for advocacy skill-building and practice, such as developing fact sheets, designing advocacy strategies, and creating products for advocacy organization.