Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. 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 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 ordissertation.
    PhD, DSc, and MS 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.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Creativity/Innovation
  • SPH GH 702: Skills in Critical Analysis and Evidence Based Writing for Public Health
    Graduate Prerequisites: The MPH epidemiology and biostatistics core courses; may be taken concurrently.
    This introductory course will develop students abilities to read the public health literature critically and to integrate evidence into a well-crafted policy memo. The class will focus on critical analysis of a case study focused on two research articles analyzing interventions to prevent HIV transmission. Through in-class discussions students will explore why the studies drew different conclusions. Course assignments will allow students to hone the applied critical analysis and writing skills they will need as public health professionals.
  • SPH GH 704: Global Public Health and Medical Care: A Systems Approach
    Graduate Prerequisites: All Global Health concentrators, MPH students who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the U.S., and MI program students may take this class. HPM concentrators must take PM702. Students wh
    This course gives students an understanding of the elements common to all health and medical care systems, including the factors which influence the shape, cost, performance, and quality of health systems. Examples are drawn from countries whose wealth and stage of development vary widely. The interaction between the public and private components of the health sector is explored. Equity in health services is a crosscutting theme. Students learn about the organization, delivery, and financing of health care and the strengths and weaknesses of alternative approaches to health care finance and delivery. The major problems in health care facing low- and middle-income countries and the strategic options available to these countries are addressed. The course is taught in an interactive format, involving a significant amount of structured group work.. There is an emphasis on systems thinking and systems approach. All Global Health concentrators, MPH students who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the U.S., and MI program students may take this class. HPM concentrators must take PM702. Students who have taken PM702 for MPH degree credit may enroll in GH704 as an MPH elective. Global Health concentrators are given preference in registration but registration is open.
  • SPH GH 708: Philippines Program/Classroom and Health Financing Study Tour
    Graduate Prerequisites: MPH cores courses in Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Social and Behavioral Sciences AND GH703 OR GH704
    The Program in Global Health Practice (PIHP) in the Philippines is an intensive, twelve week field experience. To meet the requirements of SPH IH708, students attend a Parasitology Course at the University of the Philippines College of Public Health, comprised of field trips to participate in research projects and learn about schistosomiasis and malaria control programs in the Philippines. Students also participate in a study tour to gain a practical understanding of community health financing alternatives by exposure to actual community financing programs in the Philippines. Students learn how poor communities pool their resources to pay for medical care. IH708 must be taken together with SPH IH709. IH709 is the internship portion of the Philippines Program.
  • SPH GH 709: Program for Global Health Practice in the Philippines/internship
    Graduate Prerequisites: MPH cores courses in Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Social and Behavioral Sciences AND GH703 OR GH704
    The Program in Global Health Practice (PIHP) in the Philippines is an intensive, twelve week field experience. Students complete a classroom and research portion of the program in SPH IH708. In IH709, students meet the MPH degree practicum requirement through a placement in an international, national, or local public health agency. The Philippines Program plus two skills based professional development seminars done separately from the Philippines Program meets the MPH degree practicum requirement.
  • SPH GH 715: Antiretroviral Program Management and Adherence Issues in Low Resource Settings
    Graduate Prerequisites: For advanced MPH students who have completed > 16 credits
    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 can lead to treatment failures, ARV resistance, and insufficient program uptake. This course provides students with practical knowledge and skills to manage challenges in the areas of ARV selection, pricing, quality, and program monitoring and evaluation. Guest lecturers with relevant expertise will be invited to speak on several specific topics. 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
    Graduate Prerequisites: Student must have completed > 16 credits in program
    Supply chain logistics is an important aspect of public health programs, and an area that is often unappreciated. Global COVID-19 vaccine supply and distribution is one of the greatest logistical public health challenges of our times. The journey from manufacturer to a patient in a remote rural area is complicated and fascinating serious management challenge. 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 and apply that knowledge in class exercises, discussions, case studies, and stakeholder interactions. Course assignments will have a strong experiential component with a focus on analytical skills and professional level communications.
  • SPH GH 735: Gender, Sexuality, Power, and Inequity in Global Health
    Graduate Prerequisites: The MPH core course requirement in Social and Behavioral Sciences; may take the classes concurrently.
    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 741: Global Health Consultation Techniques
    This course will prepare students for consulting and technical assistance assignments in developing countries. Students learn to analyze the pros and cons of potential consulting assignments and prepare proposals. The potential conflicts between donors/sponsors and the agency receiving the consulting services will be considered. Assignments considered include financial analysis, operational improvements, training and program evaluation. Cross cultural issues and the problems of operating in remote areas are discussed. This course is for foreign nationals returning to their own countries and US citizens/residents who will seek international assignments with USAID contractors or NGOs. During this intensive one week course, students prepare a proposal in response to an actual RFP (Request for Proposal) as well as a presentation summarizing findings of a major consulting or research assignment.
  • 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.
    As professionals working in low and middle income countries, 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 and 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 developing countries 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 foreign nationals returning to their own countries and U.S.citizens or residents who will provide technical assistance through NGOs or other agencies to implement existing health programs.
  • SPH GH 744: Program Design for Global Health
    Graduate Prerequisites: SPH PH 717 and SPH PH 720; Students cannot take both GH744 and GH887.
    Developing a structured approach to program design is an important skill for public health professionals. GH744 provides an opportunity to learn and apply the key steps of program design. The course invites students to work with an international non-governmental organization to design a public health program. The non-governmental organization will orient student consultant teams with a scope of work that will contain guidelines for developing a program for the organization and identifying prospective donors for funding. To complete the scope of work, each team will identify and describe a relevant public health problem and apply evidenced based solutions to address the problem(s). Course work will also sharpen the knowledge and the skills required for working effectively in a team and students will learn to reflect on individual and team performance. Students will be introduced to e-portfolio and will use it to document their knowledge and skills in program design.
  • SPH GH 745: Monitoring and Evaluation of Global Health Programs
    Graduate Prerequisites: SPH PH 717; 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 757: Fighting Corruption Through Accountability & Transparency
    Graduate Prerequisites: Students must have completed > 16 credits in program
    Corruption and lack of accountability in government are concerns in all countries, but they are especially critical problems in developing and transitioning countries where public resources are already scarce and corruption can cripple growth and development. In international health work, most public health practitioners will encounter corruption at some point and will need to make ethical and management decisions about how to work within corrupt systems and how to prevent corruption from occurring. This course is designed to introduce participants to the problem of corruption and provide them with skills for assessing vulnerabilities to corruption in the health sector. Topics covered include corruption risks in drug procurement and supply, medical conflicts of interest, informal payments, and financial corruption. Participants will acquire the confidence, knowledge, and skills needed to become effective advocates for anti-corruption strategies and health system reforms.
  • SPH GH 760: Foundations in Global Health
    One commonly accepted definition of global health is "collaborative trans- national research and action for promoting health for all." The course places a strong emphasis on data analysis, synthesis and interpretation for decision about health programs and policies. However, data is only one component to developing interventions and policies, implementing them and advocating for change 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 to 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.