Public Health Core

• SPH PH 510: Essentials of Public Health
  Students will gain an understanding of public health as a broad, collective enterprise that seeks to extend the benefits of current biomedical, environmental, social, and behavioral knowledge in ways that maximize its impact on the health status of a population. The course will provide an overview of the public health approach including epidemiology, disease surveillance, sustainable solutions, social determinants of health, and disease prevention. Through active learning, students will learn skills in identifying and addressing an ever-expanding list of health problems that call for collective action to protect, promote and improve our nation's health, primarily through preventive strategies. Specific topics will include: food safety, toxics reduction, HIV/AIDS & COVID-19, vaccines, and tobacco control and prevention. PH510 is a requirement for obtaining an undergraduate minor in public health. It is appropriate for undergraduates and others who are not in an SPH degree program. It does not carry degree credit for MPH students. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Social Inquiry II, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Social Inquiry II
• SPH PH 517: Quantitative Methods for Public Health
  Public health is an evidence-based discipline. Understanding the distribution and determinants of disease and engaging in prevention efforts requires the ability to collect, analyze, and communicate quantitative data. This course equips students with essential quantitative skills to evaluate data and make informed, evidence-based decisions as public health professionals. Students will gain core training in epidemiologic study design, basic biostatistical analysis, the use of statistical software, and foundational knowledge in exposure and outcome assessment.
• SPH PH 700: Foundations of Public Health
  Addressing current and emerging public health challenges requires a diverse skill set and effective collaboration across multiple disciplines. This online, asynchronous course is designed to provide students with foundational knowledge of the field, from core scientific principles to the factors influencing public health. This required academic component (0 credits) meets the foundational knowledge criteria set by CEPH for all MPH and DrPH students.
• SPH PH 712: Public Health Response to Emergencies in the United States
  This course provides students with the necessary knowledge and skills to understand the public health impacts and roles during emergencies and disasters in the United States. The course uses simulations and real world case studies to explore the persons, events, decisions, policies, and systems involved in planning, preparedness, response, and recovery. Through team assignments, lecture and discussion, students will develop knowledge and skills to use assessment resources to develop communication tools. Students will understand the importance of public health professionals partnering with community organizations. Students will learn to assess the disproportionate impact of a variety of incidents on populations, such as the 2013 Boston marathon bombing, the Ebola epidemic, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Students will consider the question that plagues governmental authorities and residents alike: ARE WE READY? In the end, students will possess a command over how the public health system can provide essential services and support healthy communities during times of emergency. This is accomplished through a combination of case studies, panel discussions, team activities, and exercises.
• SPH PH 717: Quantitative Methods for Public Health
  Public health is an evidence-based discipline. Understanding the distribution and determinants of disease and engaging in prevention efforts requires the ability to collect, analyze, and communicate quantitative data. This course equips students with essential quantitative skills to evaluate data and make informed, evidence-based decisions as public health professionals. Students will gain core training in epidemiologic study design, basic biostatistical analysis, the use of statistical software, and foundational knowledge in exposure and outcome assessment.
• SPH PH 718: Leadership and Management for Public Health
  Public health professionals engage with individuals, groups, communities, and systems, requiring strong leadership and management skills to achieve their goals. Leadership involves influencing, motivating, and empowering others to share a vision, while management focuses on organizing, coordinating, and facilitating activities. Both are essential in public health practice. This course is a hands-on seminar designed to provide practical tools and strategies for effective public health leadership and management. Students will explore primary levels of interaction and develop skills that apply across different levels and settings.
• SPH PH 719: Health Systems, Law, and Policy
  Policies and laws strongly influence health outcomes at individual and population levels. This course examines the constitutional, regulatory, policy, and socio-economic foundations for federal and state policies that determine access, quality, cost, and equity in health services and population health programs. Students gain a comprehensive understanding of processes from policy development through implementation in the public and private sectors. While the course primarily focuses on U.S. examples, it complements the World Health Organization’s framework for organizing and analyzing national health systems.
• SPH PH 720: Individual, Community, and Population Health
  Public health is shaped by overlapping social, economic, and environmental forces. This course uses various conceptual frameworks and theories to explore the root causes of individual choices and behaviors and their impacts on health, vulnerability, and illness. Students will learn to identify effective intervention strategies, such as advocating for legal and policy changes, addressing social inequities, implementing targeted programs that meet community needs, and persuading individuals to change their lifestyles. Additionally, students will learn the art and science of designing and implementing evidence-based approaches to collaborate with communities and health professionals to improve health outcomes, reduce vulnerability, and address the structural foundations of inequity.
• SPH PH 728: Religion, Ethics, and Public Health
  This course will introduce students to the health related aspects of a variety of Western and Eastern religious and ethical traditions, health controversies that exist within those traditions, methods that can be used to reconcile public health needs with religious and ethical traditions. Through review of case studies, students will be challenged to harmonize public health priorities with cultural beliefs in a way that best serves the community. For example, we will study the religious and ethical controversy inherent in major public health issues such as exemptions to mandatory vaccination laws, sex education in public schools, statues outlawing female genital cutting, life support withdrawal, determination of death, faith healing, fetal stem cell research and allocation of scarce resources. Ultimately, students will generate a robust conceptual framework, enabling a nuanced approach to some of the most critical topics in the field of public health.
• SPH PH 737: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Public Health Decision Making
  Students cannot receive credit for both SPH PH 737 and SPH EH 811. The goal of this course is to provide an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS) specifically with a focus on applications at local, national, and global levels, including demographics & disparities, infectious disease tracking, exposure assessment, community needs assessment, and health policy evaluations. The focus of PH737 is to prepare students to feel comfortable communicating with other GIS users, research spatial data, and produce high quality digital maps in an applied learning environment to support public health decision making. This course is an introductory level mapping class for a novice GIS user, applicable to all public health fields. A substantial portion of the course will be devoted to computer lab sessions. The course uses the open source software QGIS.
• SPH PH 740: Pharmaceuticals in Public Health: An Introductory Course
  Graduate Prerequisites: Recommended: EP713 and MPH core course in health policy and management - This course provides the students with an overview of the role of pharmaceuticals in public health and the basic functions of the pharmaceutical sector in terms of stakeholders, regulations, policies and evaluation. In addition the course has the objective to introduce the students to the pharmaceutical program and provide them with basic knowledge that is necessary to enter other courses. By the end of the course the students will be able to discuss the relevance of pharmaceuticals for public health, identify relevant actors in the pharmaceutical sector and their functions, to identify problems within the pharmaceutical sector that lead to inequity and inefficiencies and propose strategies to overcome these problems.
• SPH PH 746: Career P.R.E.P.
  Public health professionals must develop networking and negotiation skills to succeed in the workforce. This career development course equips students with the essential tools and strategies to market themselves in the practicum and job search process and advance in their careers. Students will learn to research potential career paths, refine their job search and interview techniques, and develop proactive strategies for long-term career growth and success. This required academic component (0 credits) can be completed in any semester.
• SPH PH 750S: Essentials of Population Health Research
  The goal of this 4-credit course is to introduce students to the data, tools, and methods of population health research. Students will develop the skills necessary to formulate and answer consequential research questions in population health research drawing on theory and methods from epidemiology, biostatistics, and the broader social sciences. Students will prepare an extended research abstract by the end of the semester on a topic of interest in population health research.
• SPH PH 757: Chronic Disease Prevention and Management
  Chronic, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic lung disease, are a leading threat to the health of the population. In this course, students will set out to ascertain the background and significance of major chronic diseases affecting population health, and evaluate intervention efforts targeting chronic disease prevention and its long term management. Controversies in current chronic disease prevention efforts will be analyzed. Students are expected to gain skills directly relevant for the development, implementation, and evaluation of interventions directed towards chronic disease prevention and management.
• SPH PH 760S: Accelerated Training in Statistical Computing
  Graduate Prerequisites: Can^t be taken together for credit with SPH BS 723 or BS 730 - This class will introduce students to statistical programming in SAS and the conceptual foundations for biostatistical and epidemiologic data analyses, including descriptive statistics, univariate and multivariable regression, and stratified analyses. The course will also introduce students to analysis of qualitative data, predictive and causal modeling, and data visualization. This is a two week intensive course that includes hands-on exercises and projects designed to build skills in statistical computing in population health research.
• SPH PH 780: Chronic Disease: A Public Health Perspective
  This is the foundational course for the certificate in chronic and non-communicable disease (chronic/NCD). Chronic and non-communicable diseases (Chronic/NCD) are responsible for a large majority of the deaths in the United States and a rapidly rising share of deaths in low- and middle-income countries. In addition to their effect on mortality, these conditions have an enormous impact on disability, quality of life, health care costs, and lost productivity, and are also a major contributor to health disparities. The course provides students with an overview of the public health approach toward chronic/NCD across the continuum of identification of causes, implementation and evaluation of strategies for prevention, and treatment and management of disease to reduce mortality and improve quality of life. Through readings, lectures, in-class exercises, and discussions, the course highlights overarching themes in chronic and non-communicable diseases, to view these conditions through a public health framework, and to further develop their knowledge and skills in subsequent courses toward their certificate.
• SPH PH 781: Topics in BST
  
• SPH PH 782: Topics in CHS
  
• SPH PH 783: Topics in EH
  
• SPH PH 784: Topics in EP