Public Health

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2000
Today, graduates of public health programs must be prepared for evidence-based practice and the generation of practice-based evidence. They must have the ability to work in an increasingly interdisciplinary, interprofessional and cross-sectoral environment and settings. Foundations of Public Health Practice introduces 12 areas of critical public health content to bridge the chasm between public health practice and theory. This course serves as an orientation to the various subjects, fields, and concepts that students will encounter in their education. While no single professional is expected to be an expert in all of these practice areas, everyone must be aware of their importance.
Foundations of Public Health Practice: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2016
This course seeks to examine the ethical challenges inherent in public health practice, research, and policy. It covers a range of topics in ethics through cases representative of different public health dilemmas. The cases considered include treating homeless people with TB, rationing medical care in the United States, conducting HIV studies of maternal-fetal transmission in Africa, managed care policies and setting priorities, the deaf community and cochlear implants, and the societal implications of genetic information. The goal is to enable students to develop an analytical methodology that has practical application for their future work.
Current issues in Public Health Ethics: Research and Practice: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2025 First 6 Week Session
Health policy and management applies concepts from economics, organizational behavior, and political science to the structure, financing, and regulation of the public health and health care delivery systems. This breadth course is designed to give MPH students a basic set of competencies in the domains central to the field.
Health Policy and Management Breadth Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
This survey course covers the breadth of hazards from chemical, biological, and physical agents of concern to environmental health professionals. Lectures are presented by experts on particular topics that emphasize the activities involved in professional practice.
Environmental Health Sciences Breadth Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
Course focuses on social, cultural, bio-behavioral determinants of health & health behavior, issues related to social & behavioral interventions, policies aimed at improving community & population health. Students will have experience in/be able to apply range of Health & Social Behavior perspectives, approaches to critically analyze public health issues, conceptualize research & interventions at different levels of ecological model. Topics designed to convey key concepts, highlight approaches in Health & Social Behavior via lectures, readings, videos & online resources. Group assignments focus on community context & health. Will require students to synthesize/apply concepts from course. Assignments will culminate in a final group project.
Health and Social Behavior Breadth: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
Health policy and management applies concepts from economics, organizational behavior, and political science to the structure, financing, and regulation of the public health and health care delivery systems. This breadth course is designed to give MPH students a basic set of competencies in the domains central to the field.
Health Policy and Management Breadth Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course will give an introduction to the major human and natural activities that lead to release of hazardous materials into the environment as well as the causal links between chemical, physical, and biological hazards in the environment and their impact on human health, including those related to climate change. The basic principles of toxicology, exposure assessment, risk assessment, risk perception, and environmental health policy will be presented. The overall role of environmental risks in the pattern of human disease, both nationally and internationally, will be covered.
Environmental Health Sciences Breadth Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
Health and social behavior uses theory and research from the behavioral sciences to explain the causes and health effects of salutary and risky behavior.
Health and Social Behavior Breadth: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2019
This course focuses on the primary factors that affect health and the interventions that can promote health. Students examine the determinants of health and the theory, history, types, ethics, and approaches of public health interventions. Community level interventions and multidisciplinary approaches receive special emphasis. The course stresses a rigorous critique of the outcomes of interventions and practical ways to improve them. Students take an active role in the design and conduct of the course.
Public Health Interventions: Theory, Practice, and Research: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Focus on ethnic and cultural diversity in health behavior as a basis for public health programs. Consideration of U.S. ethnic minority groups and cultural groups in non-Western societies. Health status and behavior examined in context of relevant social and anthropological theory (social class, acculturation, political economy). Influence of socio-cultural background on concepts of health, illness, and health-seeking behavior. Implications for planning public health programs and policies.
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Health Status: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2025, Fall 2024
This course is an advanced alcohol research seminar in which presentations are made by alcohol research scientists nationally and internationally, as well as pre-and post-doctoral fellows, and focus on special topical areas related to psychosocial research in the field each semester. Areas covered include the epidemiology of drinking patterns and alcohol-related problems, issues related to treatment of alcohol-related problems, and health services research. Guest presentations are also provided (related to topics outside psychosocial research) to provide a breadth of understanding in the field. The seminar also includes sessions focused on methodological issues in alcohol-related research and grant writing, and has a research ethics component covering a number of sessions.
Advanced Alcohol Research Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024
Social science research on identity and vulnerable populations is at a critical moment. This course will examine the tension between theoretical and empirical research and its adverse impact on social science research. It will explore ways to develop methodological approaches to race and other markers of human difference that blend traditional empirical methods with critical theoretical traditions, e.g. critical race theory, feminist theory, disability theory, queer theory, and others. Emphasis will be placed on understanding the implications of this tension between theory and methods for research in the health sciences.
Critical Theory and Social Science Methods: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course will examine ethnic and cultural differences in health status and behavior among historically marginalized communities in the United States, including African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, as well as sexual minorities and groups from non-Western societies.
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Health Status: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2016
Focus on ethnic and cultural diversity in health behavior as a basis for public health programs. Consideration of U.S. ethnic minority groups and cultural groups in non-Western societies. Health status and behavior examined in context of relevant social and anthropological theory (social class, acculturation, political economy). Influence of socio-cultural background on concepts of health, illness, and health-seeking behavior. Implications for planning public health programs and policies.
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Health Status: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course provides a survey of theoretical perspectives and their application in analyzing the behavioral, social, and cultural dimensions of community health problems. An emphasis is placed on critically examining the strengths and weaknesses of particular theories for understanding and addressing complex community health problems.
Theories of Health and Social Behavior: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
Examines the role of mass communication in advancing public health goals. Reviews mass media theories in general, and theories of the news media in particular. Provides an in-depth understanding of media advocacy as a strategy for using news media and paid advertising to support policy initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels. Examples are drawn from a wide range of public health issues.
Mass Communications in Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Understanding and addressing persistent racial inequities in health status is a core public health problem. Ethnic minorities are much more likely to experience much higher rates of poor birth outcomes, infant mortality, infectious and chronic diseases, hospitalization rates, and early death rates from all causes. This course examines racial and ethnic health inequities as a function of social inequality. Topics are drawn from a social determinants of health framework emphasizing the importance of the economic, social, and political features that adversely affect the health status of many underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. from a multidisciplinary approach: Public Health, sociology, anthropology, and social welfare
Research Advances in Health Disparities: Multidisciplinary Perspectives: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2025 Second 6 Week Session
This course explores the use of human centered design to drive tangible change in public health settings and introduces design thinking: a process of identifying, creating, and implementing creative solutions. Students will explore the role of design thinking in context. Learned methodologies enable students to discover users’ needs; synthesize complex information; identify direction for design and communication; generate ideas; and prototype, test, and communicate solutions. Most importantly, this course will support students thinking creatively when addressing public health problems, employing methods and techniques that are focused on idea generation and innovative solution building in service of creating a better world.
Human Centered Design in Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
This course provides the necessary skills to plan effective public health programs. Examines principles and methods underlying program planning, emphasizing multi-disciplinary, collaborative and "real world" planning processes. Provides students with conceptual and experiential understanding of how to plan, conduct and present community health needs assessments by covering both theory and practical skills. Students will become familiar with the theory and methods related to ecologically valid assets-based and needs-based community health assessments and translate them into practice. Students will work with a community organization to apply the program planning principles and needs assessment taught throughout the course.
Program Planning and Needs Assessment: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2025 Second 6 Week Session
The purpose of this course is to provide students with the necessary skills to plan health programs. We will examine the principles and methods underlying program planning. Multi-disciplinary, collaborative planning will be emphasized. Program planning applications will be emphasized throughout the course by using case studies, specific illustrations, and online planning exercises.
Program Planning and Development: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course will introduce first-year public health nutrition and other MPH students to critical issues in public health nutrition, and provide them with critical thinking skills to analyze these issues using scientific literature. Students will build group facilitation skills, library research skills, and professional advocacy skills. Second-year public health nutrition students and a panel of PHN graduates will speak to the students about valuable skills and competencies needed for work in public health nutrition.
PH Nutrition Core Course: Critical Issues in Public Health Nutrition: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
Nutrition assessment tools are used to evaluate an individual’s or population’s nutrition status and/or risk of specific nutrient excess or deficiency. This 3-unit course will discuss various dietary, anthropometric, clinical, and biochemical nutrition assessment tools and provide you with skills to determine which assessment tools are needed based on program/research project goals, how to interpret nutrition assessment survey results and apply them to populations, and critically evaluate the metrics used to define different types of malnutrition.
Nutrition Assessment: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course examines the historical origins of food and nutrition improvement programs in the United States, including the political and administrative conditions that led to the development of these programs. It also examines the goals, design, operations, and effectiveness of some of these programs: Food Stamp Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the National School Lunch Program, the School Breakfast Program, Head Start, the Child Care Food Program, and the Elderly Nutrition Program.
Food and Nutrition Policies and Programs: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
Course examines ways in which the US govt designs & implements policies/programs that affect access to nutritionally adequate, safe, affordable diets. We analyze how multiple stakeholders in the food system interact to affect policy design & implementation; historical, social, economic, environmental & political factors that determine stakeholder positions on policy issues; & ways these factors promote or act as barriers to achieving a system that promotes optimal food access, nutrition & health. We cover contemporary food & nutrition policy issues, as well as the history of these issues & ideas. Students will understand the broad spectrum of policies that affect human diets & will become familiar with the policy processes.
Food and Nutrition Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course develops the ability to read published nutritional epidemiology research critically. Basic research methods in nutritional epidemiology will be reviewed, and issues in design, analysis, and interpretation unique to nutritional epidemiology will be addressed. This will be accomplished by readings and study questions, lecture/discussions, and problem sets.
Nutritional Epidemiology: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course will use a case-based approach to examine the ways in which governments in developing countries design and implement policies and programs that affect food production and access to safe, affordable, and nutritionally adequate diets. In the course we will analyze, assess and evaluate ways to take action to ameliorate the major nutritional problems facing vulnerable populations in developing countries.
Programs and Policies in Global Nutrition: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course will take a solutions-oriented approach to addressing the pressing problems in current food systems. We will explore strategies used by the disciplines of agroecology, policy, law, public health, and business in working to improve food systems and apply their varied approaches to real-world case studies. Through weekly readings, discussions, and problem-solving sessions with Berkeley’s leading food systems experts, students will gain a broad understanding of food systems and the leverage points that can be targeted to improve the health of people and the planet.
Transforming the Food System: From Agroecology to Population Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Nutrition plays a vital role in human reproduction and child growth and development. This course provides an overview of the major nutritional issues faced by women of childbearing age, infants, children, and adolescents in the United States and around the world, with selected topics explored in greater depth. Nutritional problems are multi-factorial and occur at multiple levels and we will study them from a variety of viewpoints (biological, pyschological, socio-cultural, economic, political, and behavioral) as well as from individual and population perspectives. Participants in the course will become acquainted with nutritional research, policies, and interventions designed to enhance reproduction, growth, and development. This course will also explore health disparities in maternal and child nutrition in both a domestic and international context.
Public Health Aspects of Maternal and Child Nutrition: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
Nutrition plays a vital role in human reproduction and child growth and development. This course covers core principles of nutrition and health and provides an overview of the major nutritional needs and issues faced by women of reproductive age, infants, children, and adolescents in the United States and globally, with selected topics explored in greater depth. This course will also explore disparities in various health outcomes related to MCH nutrition and provide students the opportunity to apply the course concepts at a personal and programmatic level.
Maternal and Child Health Nutrition: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This is an energizing and exciting symposium that explores the robust opportunities and accompanying challenges of plant-forward solutions. The gathering is convened to underscore the urgency of shifting to plant-based diets for healthier, more equitable, and resilient food systems and to explore how students will play a pivotal role in the transformation of the food system. Plant Futures is the first program at UC Berkeley to feature in depth multidisciplinary conversation aimed at exploring the role and importance of plant-based foods as a critical lever for change, and provides a unique opportunity for students to directly connect to prominent leaders, creators and influencers and forge pathways for future professional engagement.
Introduction to Plant-Centric Food Systems: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
A collaborative, multidisciplinary applied learning journey in systems entrepreneurship, ethical leadership and innovation models intended to accelerate the transition to a healthy, sustainable and just food system.
Plant Futures Challenge Lab: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
In the past decade, health systems and their role in global health have received increasing focus. While disease-focused, 'vertical programs', such as malaria and HIV/AIDs still command the lion's share of donor resources, it has become clear that the sustainability of disease programs depends on embedding them into a country's health system. This course provides a real world, practical understanding of health systems, based on a solid academic foundation. It introduces current debates about health systems, health financing, and universal health coverage in the international community. Students will use five key structural questions to analyze health care systems and their performance on quality, cost and access metrics.
Comparative Health Systems: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course will explore issues related to maternal, child, and adolescent health throughout the life course with a focus on the social determinants of health, health disparities, and social justice. Discussion will focus on current issues central to maternal and child health policy and practice; the history and organization of MCH health services in the US; and analyze the ways in which the political context in the US and internationally affects the health and well-being of families, including critical examination of the ways in which knowledge about an issue, an understanding of the social strategies to address that issue, and political will are all leveraged to influence the creation of MCH policy.
Foundations of Maternal and Child Health Policy, Practice and Science: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This course is designed to provide an understanding of the epidemiology and etiology of critical health issues among adolescents, including complex contextual influences and individual processes related to this dynamic period of life. Each adolescent health outcome will be considered in light of developmental issues related to the pubertal transition and multilevel influences that contribute to adolescent health and well-being, including 1) biological, 2) cognitive, 3) behavioral, and 4) social-culture factors. The course will emphasize: empirical evidence for the etiology of adolescent health problems, documented risk and protective factors, and content and timing of preventive intervention efforts to ameliorate risk.
Adolescent Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2020, Spring 2017
This course will focus on research methods and issues in perinatal and reproductive epidemiology with an emphasis on methodologies and specific case studies. Specific adverse reproductive outcomes, risk factors, and prevalence will be discussed. The course will include critiques of published studies, methods of conducting epidemiologic research and data collection, and techniques of proposal writing.
Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course is designed to support MCH students complete their masters capstone project. Part I is offered in the Fall and Part II is in Spring.
Practicum in MCH Data Analysis I: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
The course is designed to support MCH students working on their Master's Capstone project. The course goal is to support students in a variety of methodological issues and practical issues. The course is a combination of formal class meetings and one-on-one meetings.
Practicum In MCH Data Analysis II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
The purpose of this seminar is to learn how to critically review peer-reviewed articles in the field of maternal, child, adolescent and family health (MCAH). This is a required course for all Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health MPH students and some MCAH Specialty areas. Others may enroll with permission of the instructor.
Maternal, Child & Adolescent Health Journal Club: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This course introduces students to theories and concepts of leadership and explores ways of applying these to maternal, child, and adolescent health issues. This course provides opportunities for students to develop skills and resources for further developing their own leadership. The skills taught in this course will prepare students to become dynamic, thoughtful leaders in the field of MCAH with a particular focus on continued self-reflection and development to lead programs that address the diverse issues facing MCAH populations.
Foundations of Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health Leadership: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
This class will orient students to important definitions, tools, and activities to understand the public health implications of abortion, to inform their and others’ attitudes and beliefs about abortion, and ultimately, to prevent morbidity and mortality caused by unsafe abortion. The course will explore women’s rights, reproductive rights, human rights, and foster discussion about access to abortion services as a form of empowerment.
Abortion: Implications for Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
The course examines the origins of health and human rights concerns and outlines a conceptual basis for human rights among health professionals. It provides an overview of the epidemiology of human rights violations worldwide and an analysis of the psychology of abuse. The course considers the role of health professionals in (1) documenting the health and social consequences of human rights violations and war; (2) treating survivors of abuse; (3) addressing specific human rights concerns of women and children; (4) identifying the impact of health policy on human rights; and (5) participating in human rights education and advocacy. The course will also examine issues of universality of human rights and cultural relativism and the role of accountability for the past abuses in prevention.
Health and Human Rights: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
Assessment of health status of mothers, infants, and children on worldwide basis; special emphasis on problems, policies, and programs affecting MCH and family planning in developing countries.
International Maternal and Child Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
This course introduces students to the basic principles of global public health that are used to improve population health at all levels. The course will start with an introduction to essential concepts from public health disciplines that are the foundations of global health practice. Students will then apply these concepts to current global health challenges through course activities, assignments, and readings that will provide a real world context. Global health experts will share their experiences and lessons learned from implementing global health research and programs. Throughout the course, students will gain critical and creative-thinking experience in applying tools and frameworks towards addressing diverse global health needs.
Foundations of Global Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
Course examines the determinants of family size and the role played by contraception, voluntary sterilization, and induced abortion in the transition to small families. It looks at the factors controlling access to fertility regulation in developed and developing countries and discusses the factors that have made for successful family programs as well as those that have generated controversy. The course looks at the relationship between family planning and the health of women and children and at the role of family size in economic development and environmental problems. It looks at advances in family planning, organization, and promotion of services and discusses ethical issues facing providers.
Family Planning, Population Change, and Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
This course provides an overview to ethical issues within a global health context. The course starts with an introduction to ethical frameworks, theories, and historical references that elevate the ethics conversation to the global stage. The course will then link theory to practice as we delve deeper into ethical issues in research, experiential learning, and delivery. We will consider ethical questions about the discipline of global public health and the roles of governments, academic institutions, organizations, health professions, and members of the public as stewards of health. Students will gain a deeper understanding of the divers international perspectives on the concepts of ethics and health.
Global Health Ethics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
The Anti-Racist and Racial Justice Praxis Spring Student Elective is a semester-long student elective course for continuing students. This class will cultivate up to 40 student champions to develop an anti-racist analysis of public health, present a set of anti-racist public health tools, and build skills necessary for advancing an anti-racist agenda within the field.
Anti-Racist and Racial Justice Praxis Spring Student Elective: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2017, Spring 2016
This is an interdisciplinary course which will adopt a broad-based ecological perspective of health and behavior. This class will emphasize the interconnected and multidirectional relationships between biology, behavior, and the social environment. This course will be conducted as a seminar series (with a focus on biological processes). We will investigate the assertion that biological, psychological, and social processes interact over a lifetime to influence health and vulnerability to disease (a developmental epigenetic perspective). Rather than focusing on "if" social factors can influence health and disease we will focus on "how" social factors may regulate/change biological measures. Three very general themes will be addressed: development, "social" neuroscience and gene-environment interactions as they relate to behavior. Topics such as constraints/plasticity and behavior, genetic determinism, vulnerability versus resilience, gene-environment interactions, fetal/developmental programming, and stress will all be touched upon.
Biological Embedding of Social Factors: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
The study of concepts, methods, rationale, and uses of evaluation research as they apply to health and social programs.
Evaluation of Health and Social Programs: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course provides an overview of the concepts and methods of program evaluation. The course will be useful to those concerned with evaluation of health and social service programs. Participants will develop the critical skills necessary to assess the quality of evaluation research projects, to apply technical skills in professional practice, and to develop evaluation plans for a variety of heath and social programs.
Evaluation of Health and Social Programs: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Spring 2020
The goal of this seminar is to provide doctoral and advanced master's degree students with an understanding of theories, principles, and strategies of community-based participatory research (CBPR) and related traditions. The advantages and limitations of this approach, skills necessary for effective application, and theory-driven case studies will be explored. Students undertaking a service-learning project applying CBPR may receive a 4th unit.
Community-Based Participatory Research in Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course is designed to familiarize students who have little or no experience in conducting qualitative research with the perspectives, methods, and techniques of a vast and contentious tradition of research. The course will cover some of the methods of data collections used in the conduct of qualitative inquiries, the analysis of textural data, the write-up of findings from qualitative studies, and the development of a qualitative research proposal. While learning about qualitative methods, students will gain an understanding of the qualitative research literature on a topic of their choice, as well as how to integrate findings from a variety of qualitative studies on a research question of topic.
Introduction to Qualitative Methods in Public Health Research: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2025 Second 6 Week Session
This course provides a thorough background in the design, administration, and interpretation of a range of survey strategies (e.g., telephone, face-to-face, mail and internet surveys) within the broader context
of a research or evaluation project. Topics will include formulation of study aims, developing an appropriate research design, protection of human subjects and proper conduct of research, sample size
calculations, recruitment strategies, survey administration, and development of an analysis plan. Class topics are designed to convey practical knowledge through topical lectures, group activities, partner feedback and a survey design project consisting of two parts: a survey instrument and a research plan.

Social and Behavioral Health Research: Introduction to Survey Methods: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
Introduction to federal-level health policy and analysis of government capacity in addressing major issues in health policy. The course explores structural impediments to reform in the US, regulatory decision-making -- particularly decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, and basic tools of policy analysis. Students will apply these tools in a seminar paper that analyzes a proposed or existing health policy or program.
Health Policy Decision-Making: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course introduces the basic scientific principles of environmental health risk assessment, develops the understanding necessary to carry out and interpret quantitative risk assessments, and describes the context in which decisions manage environmental health risks are made. The course presents the quantitative methods used to assess the human health risks associated with exposure to microbial and chemical agents, focusing on the four major components of risk assessment: hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment and risk characterization. The course examines the application of environmental health risk assessment to contemporary issues including the associated complexities, challenges and controversies.
Health Risk Assessment: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2023
A graduate seminar in practice-based means to advocate for health policy. This course focuses on data based strategies using persuasive written and oral communication skills necessary to preserve and/or improve the health status of populations. Students will develop research, organization, and coalition-building skills necessary to produce an effective advocacy campaign. The course identifies the roles of those involved in the making of policy and demonstrates the use of appropriate channels and technologies to influence health policy change.
Health Policy Advocacy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
The course focuses on strategic policy-making, messaging informed by values and data, and persuasive written and oral communication skills necessary to preserve and/or improve health and advance health equity. Students will understand and situate the important role of focused public health advocacy in the spectrum of public health practice. Students will develop research, strategy, organization, communication, and coalition-building skills necessary to produce an effective advocacy campaign and understand the unique approaches to advocacy in different forums. The course identifies the roles of those involved in making policy and demonstrates the use of appropriate channels and technologies to influence health policy change.
Health Policy Advocacy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course will provide an intensive, case-based introduction to global health policy. Students will simulate working on teams asked to advise Ministries of Health in low- and middle-income countries and other global policymaking institutions grappling with health policy questions. Over a series of four cases, the course will introduce students to key concepts in health policy and economics, including allocating scarce resources, pandemic response, financial incentives to shape provider behaviors, and policies to influence the private sector to improve population health. Students will also become familiar with the major actors and institutions that shape international health policy.
Global Health Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2025 Second 6 Week Session
This course serves as an introduction to key topics in health policy making in the United States, with a focus on the policy process and policy analysis methods. Using the policy analysis framework of Eugene Bardach’s Eightfold Path first introduced in PBHLTH W200E, the course will explore the entire policy analysis process from the identification of a problem, to the evaluation of policy solutions, and finally to the techniques and formats for effective health policy communications. This analysis method is contextualized within the process of public policy making within the U.S. government.
Health Policy Methods: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Course examines the policy framework for biomedical technology, including medical devices, drugs, diagnostics, digital therapeutics and algorithms. Emphasis will be placed on the funding of research and development, the protection of intellectual property, FDA market authorization, insurance coverage and algorithm design. Focus will be on the US but will examine industrial policy and innovation nationalism within a global context. Students are required to read peer-reviewed articles, keep up with journalistic reports and participate in classroom discussions. Lectures will be pre-recorded and posted on bCourses and it is expected that students will have watched these lectures and done the readings prior to class.
Biomedical Innovation Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course examines the policy framework for biomedical technology, including medical devices, drugs, diagnostics, digital therapeutics, and algorithms. Emphasis will be placed on the funding of research and development, the protection of intellectual property, FDA market authorization, insurance coverage, and algorithm design. The focus will be on the US but we will examine industrial policy and innovation nationalism within a global context. Students will be required to read peer-reviewed articles, keep up with journalistic reports, and participate in online discussions.
Biomedical Innovation Policy: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
First semester of a year-long course; an integrative seminar to provide a supportive environment for master's degree students in the HPM program of the School of Public Health. During the first semester, students learn about the Capstone requirements, learn research techniques that may be applied to their projects, and define their project. The course includes weekly lectures on research methods as well as in-class exercises practicing these methods and applying them to potential Capstone topics. In the second semester, students conduct an applied methods thesis, write a report and present it. A core requirement which prepares students to transition to the profession; it fulfills Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) requirement.
Capstone Seminar in Health Policy and Management Part 1: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2009, Fall 2008, Fall 2007
Second semester of a year-long course; an integrative seminar to provide a supportive environment for master's degree students in the HPM program of the School of Public Health. In the first semester, students learn about the Capstone requirements, learn research techniques that may be applied to their projects, and define their project. During the second semester, students conduct an applied methods thesis, write a report and present it. The course addresses challenges students are experiencing in conducting their projects as well as real-time problem solving for these challenges. A core requirement which prepares students to transition to the profession; it fulfills Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) requirement.
Capstone Seminar in Health Policy and Management Part 2: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
The overall purpose of this course is to assist the student in managing health care organizations from a strategic perspective. This is accomplished by systematically addressing systemwide, organization-wide, group- and individual-level issues in strategy formulation, content, implementation, and performance. Emphasis is placed upon the manager's role in simultaneously taking into account a wide variety of internal and external factors to improve organization and system performance in meeting the health needs of individuals and communities. Emphasis is also placed on the development and implementation of strategies to meet multiple stakeholder demands, particular attention given to continuous quality improvement/total quality management.
Strategic Management and the Health Sector: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course is designed as a first semester seminar for master's students in the Division of Health Policy and Management. The purposes of this course are fourfold: 1) to provide an overview of the U.S. medical and health care systems; 2) to provide an introduction to basic concepts and competencies in health policy analysis and health management; 3) to provide internship preparation and career development activities; and 4) to provide opportunities to develop relationships with 1st- and 2nd-year HPM students and with faculty.
Foundations of Health Policy and Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course is an integrative seminar that builds on the core curriculum requirements of the school and HPM specialty. Participants are master's degree students advancing to candidacy. After sharing their internship experiences and the impact on career decisions, the students are required to draw on situations from their internship to demonstrate what they have learned by leading fellow seminar participants in facilitated discussions, culminating in a specific management recommendation or policy position. Students will gain exposure to a range of HPM issues based on the experiences of their peers. Each student is also required to produce a 20-page paper and prepare and deliver a formal presentation to seminar participants and invited faculty. The paper will address an HPM topic of interest that has been selected by the student and approved by the course faculty and the student's academic advisor. Suggested formats for the paper are a policy or strategic management analysis, but other options may be proposed and approved by the instructor.
Capstone Seminar in Health Policy and Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025
This course incorporates four key CEPH competencies related to health policy and management and provides the student with an understanding of the nature and essential components of public health and health policy and management. Specifically, the course opens with an overview of the key roles that public health plays and then takes a look at dimensions of the structure of health systems, key managerial concepts in finance and resource allocation and how the policy setting process can impact different populations in potentially unequal ways. For each topic area, general framing will be presented and then a more specific use case framed to allow the student to consider a tangible example.
Health Policy and Management in Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2025 Second 6 Week Session
This course is an introduction to health care strategy in which students will have an immersive, practical, hands-on experience in the strategic management of a real or fictitious health care organization. This course will familiarize students with the requisite skills and techniques to lead strategic change at a division, department, or enterprise level within a health care organization.
Strategy in Health Care Organizations: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
Introduction to health administration, focusing on theories of management, organizations, and environments as they relate to the administration of health services. Cases, simulation, and structured experiences will be used to tie theory to practice.
Organizational Behavior and Management in Health Care: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2017
This course examines major theories and frameworks for analyzing health care organizations. Emphasis is given to the application and testing of theories in the health care sector. Population ecology, transaction-cost economics, strategic management, and network theories are examined. The seminar will rely on extensive student participation.
Doctoral Seminar: Organizational Analysis of the Health Care Sector: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
The course focuses on the quality of Health Care in the United States, including variations and determinants in quality and best practices in improving quality. Students will develop an understanding of conceptual frameworks for Health Care problem solving and quality improvement. As part of the class they will gain experience in designing a Health Care quality improvement plan. The course is designed for Graduate students interested in healthcare delivery.
Health Care Quality: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
Today, the health care system consists of a mixture of organizational forms that plan, regulate, and deliver medical care and other health services. The objective of this course is to consider 1) the structure of these organizations and the factors that affect their performance, as well as their growth and decline and 2) the role that health care managers play in the organizations in which they work.
Organizational Behavior and Management in Health Care: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This introductory course will serve as the gateway for students into the world of applied IS. It has been designed keeping in mind students looking to gain a preliminary understanding of the principles and practice of IS. The module will provide a broad overview of the theoretical and evidence-based models and frameworks used in the field as well as the barriers and challenges faced by implementation scientists in the real-world application of evidence-based practices, programs and policies.
Introduction to Applied Implementation Science: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course provides hands-on experience for students to apply their learnings from “PH W225A Introduction to Applied Implementation Science” to global policy contexts. It has been designed to provide practical exposure to the world of Implementation Science, by employing the models and frameworks discussed in the introductory module to diverse public health programs around the world.
Implementation Science: Applied Case Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course introduces students to the economics of health and health care. In addition to familarizing students with the language and tools of health economics, the course will provide an overview of key institutional features of the health economy as well as important research findings in the field. These will be used to evaluate the economic logic and incentives in competing proposals for health care reform.
Health Economics A: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
This online course provides an overview of the United States healthcare system using a microeconomic lens. Students will be introduced to the microeconomic theory and empirical students that will deepen their understanding of how consumers, firms and the government influence healthcare expenditures (including its quantity and prices), healthcare quality, and patient health outcomes. These economic models will enable students to predict how changes in consumer behavior, the industrial organization of firms, and government policies affect healthcare and health outcomes.
Health Economics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This course examines the economic theories and evidence underpinning population health interventions and policies. Topics include the economic evaluation of community and clinical preventive services, systemic population health management innovations, behavioral economics approaches, and policies targeting upstream social determinants of population health. A brief module on cost-effectiveness analysis is included.
Economics of Population Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This 3-unit online course will explore the economics evidence base and tools for evaluating economic factors and interventions that shape the health of populations. The course will include a substantial economic evaluation module to teach cost-effectiveness analysis tools.
Economics of Population Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2017, Fall 2015
This class is a survey of different health care systems in western and eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, and China. Other countries will be added to meet the interests of students. The course examines the structure and financing of the health system in each country and assesses the effectiveness, efficacy, and equity of each systems. Students will make a presentation on a country's health system and write a paper.
Global Health Economics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course teaches students cost-effectiveness analysis and related tools in a compact 3-week online format. Students will learn when and why to use alternative economic evaluation methods to assess benefits relative to costs of health policies and interventions. They will also learn to interpret and critique such analyses, and to conduct basic cost-effectiveness analyses themselves.
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2017, Fall 2015
This course covers finance and strategic financial management in the health services and products industry, including provider organizations, insurance firms, and biopharmaceutical and medical device companies. Cases are used to apply the financial analysis and planning skills learned in the course. Topic areas include financial statement analysis, pricing and service decisions, debt financing, venture capital, and private equity, IPO and public equity markets, risk and return, capital budgeting and project risk assessment, mergers and acquisitions, vertical and horizontal integration.
Health Care Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This 3-unit online course provides the student with an understanding of the importance of finance in healthcare and provides basic financial and accounting skills needed by all health professionals. The course introduces student to concepts in both financial and managerial accounting and teaches students relevant financial techniques used by managers and those charged with key capital investment decisions including: ratio analysis, cost-volume profit analysis, discounted cash flow and forecasting.
Health Care Finance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2022, Spring 2020
This course provides an overview of analytic methods that Master's students in health policy and management should be familiar with. Topics include linear regression, limited dependent variable models such as logit, design, and analysis of complex surveys (with weighted and clustered sampling), and quasi-experimental causal analysis. The course complements 245, with an emphasis on enabling nonstatisticians to interpret and critique applications in the HPM literature.
Analytic Methods for Health Policy and Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
Exploration of common origins of urban planning and public health, from why and how the fields separated and strategies to reconnect them, to addressing urban health inequities in the 21st century. Inquiry to influences of urban population health, analysis of determinants, and roles that city planning and public health agencies - at local and international level - have in research, and action aimed at improving urban health. Measures, analysis, and design of policy strategies are explored.
Healthy Cities: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
Meeting the challenge of global sustainability will require interdisciplinary approaches to research and education, as well as the integration of this new knowledge into society, policymaking, and business. Green Chemistry is an intellectual framework created to meet these challenges and guide technological development. It encourages the design and production of safer and more sustainable chemicals and products.
Green Chemistry: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Sustainability: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
The process and principles of drug development will be discussed in the context of the FDA's mandate and reach (basic science, pre-clinical and clinical research, policy, law, and public health), emphasizing the impact of public health emergencies such as HIV on evolution of regulatory policies.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Drug Development, and Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This basic and introductory course in regulatory science addresses the demand for increased training in the US and abroad by providing an overview of the basic elements of regulation of health practice and health products; providing students with information needed to understand the most important health practice and product regulation issues from the perspective of current regulatory standards, their standards for evidence and the role of innovation in regulatory science.
Regulatory Science, Drug Development and Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2018
The first half of the course focuses on the application of organization theories to health sector organizations. The second half of the course focuses on the application of public administration and political science theories to health sector organizations. Students will also be exposed to basic research designs, logic models and hypothesis development. Emphasis is placed on critique of existing theories and the associated empirical literature. This PhD seminar course is primarily intended for first year PhD students in the Berkeley PhD Program in Health Policy administered by the School of Public Health on behalf of the Graduate School. The course is also open with the consent of the instructors to students in other PhD programs,
Theories and Methods in Health Policy and Health Services Research: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2021, Spring 2019
The first half of the course focuses on major economics theories and frameworks relevant to the study of health policy and health services research. The second half of the course focuses on the application of behavioral and social science theories and methods to population health research. Students will also be exposed to basic research designs, logic models, and hypothesis development. Emphasis is placed on critique of existing theories and the associated empirical literature. This PhD seminar course is primarily intended for first year PhD students in the Berkeley PhD program in Health Policy administered by the School of Public Health on behalf of the Graduate School.
Theories and Methods in Health Policy and Health Services Research B: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2025, Fall 2024
The Health Policy Research Colloquium series is a program of empirical research seminars focused on the most important issues facing patients, providers health care plans, purchases, and policymakers today. It provides an opportunity for Health Policy doctoral students across all stages of completion to meet regularly, analyse and critique ongoing research, and participate in stimulating discussions with faculty and guest speakers. Students are required to register for and attend the Health Policy Research Colloquium during their first two years of their PhD training.
Health Policy Research Colloquium: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2025, Fall 2024
This PhD dissertation seminar is restricted to advanced students (Year 3+) of the PhD Program in Health Policy. Draw together skills developed in coursework in the preparation and conduct of one’s own dissertation project. For students already advanced to candidacy, this will entail presenting research findings. For students not yet advanced, this will involve developing the dissertation prospectus. Students learn to incorporate colleague feedback to improve research projects. Practices associated with human subjects and ethics of research are also emphasized.
Health Policy PhD Dissertation Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2023, Fall 2021
The seminar is required for all first and second-year students in the PhD Program in Health Policy. This seminar focuses on organizational behavior and management research in health. The seminar covers major organizational and management theories and frameworks relevant to the study of health policy and health sector organizations.
Doctoral Seminar in Health Organizations & Management: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022
The seminar is required for all first and second-year students in the PhD Program in Health Policy. This seminar focuses on health economics. Students critically examine empirical research focused on moral hazard, adverse selection, modeling demand, cost-effectiveness analysis, market influences, provider payment, behavioral economics, and benefits design in health care and public health.
Doctoral Seminar in Health Economics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Course covers major topics in general statistical theory, with a focus on statistical methods in epidemiology. The course provides a broad theoretical framework for understanding the properties of commonly-used and more advanced methods. Emphasis is on estimation in nonparametric models in the context of contingency tables, regression (e.g., linear, logistic), density estimation and more. Topics include maximum likelihood and loss-based estimation, asymptotic linearity/normality, the delta method, bootstrapping, machine learning, targeted maximum likelihood estimation. Comprehension of broad concepts is the main goal, but practical implementation in R is also emphasized. Basic knowledge of probability/statistics and calculus are assume
Introduction to Modern Biostatistical Theory and Practice: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
Analysis of survival time data using parametric and non-parametric models, hypothesis testing, and methods for analyzing censored (partially observed) data with covariates. Topics include marginal estimation of a survival function, estimation of a generalized multivariate linear regression model (allowing missing covariates and/or outcomes), estimation of a multiplicative intensity model (such as Cox proportional hazards model) and estimation of causal parameters assuming marginal structural models. General theory for developing locally efficient estimators of the parameters of interest in censored data models. Computing techniques, numerical methods, simulation and general implementation of biostatistical analysis techniques with emphasis on data applications.
Biostatistical Methods: Survival Analysis and Causality: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2025, Fall 2023
Machine learning (ML) algorithms are widely applied in our daily lives. The overarching goal of this course is to provide students with an overview and hands-on experiences of popular machine learning methods and biostatistical models adopted in the healthcare system and medical research. The topics of the class include supervised learning methods (GLM, SVM, metric learning, tree-based approaches, and shrinkage based approaches), semi-supervised learning (transduction learning, inductive learning), deep learning and neural networks, adaptive experiments, reinforcement learning and multi arm bandit algorithm, causal inference and resampling based statistical inference. The course will also cover the applications of these methods.
Machine Learning and Biostatistics in Healthcare: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2015, Fall 2013
This course and Pb Hlth C240C/Stat C245C provide an introduction to computational statistics with emphasis on statistical methods and software for addressing high-dimensional inference problems that arise in current biological and medical research. The courses also discusses statistical computing resources, with emphasis on the R language and environment (www.r-project.org). Programming topics to be discussed include: data structures, functions, statistical models, graphical procedures, designing an R package, object-oriented programming, inter-system interfaces. The statistical and computational methods are motivated by and illustrated on data structures that arise in current high-dimensional inference problems in biology and medicine.
Biostatistical Methods: Computational Statistics with Applications in Biology and Medicine II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
Genomics is one of the fundamental areas of research in the biological sciences and is rapidly becoming one of the most important application areas in statistics. The first course in this two-semester sequence is Public Health C240E/Statistics C245E. This is the second course, which focuses on sequence analysis, phylogenetics, and high-throughput microarray and sequencing gene expression experiments. The courses are primarily intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students from the mathematical sciences.
Statistical Genomics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
This course will help students think clearly and critically about asking and answering research questions in public health. The first part of the course covers foundational tools required to formulate and answer clear research question: probability, density, independence, expectation, estimators, sampling distributions, inference, and potential outcomes. The second part of the course uses this language to introduce linear, logistic, and nonparametric regression and shows how to use these methods to answer descriptive, predictive, and causal research questions.
Intermediate Biostatistics for Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course will help students think clearly and critically about asking and answering research questions in public health. The first part of the course covers foundational tools required to formulate and answer a clear research question: probability, density, independence, expectation, estimators, sampling distributions, inference, and potential outcomes. The second part of the course uses this language to introduce linear, logistic, and nonparametric regression and shows how to use these methods to answer descriptive, predictive, and causal research questions.

Intermediate Biostatistics for Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2021
Course covers statistical issues surrounding estimation of effects using data on units followed through time. Course emphasizes a regression model approach for estimating associations of disease incidence modeling, continuous outcome data/linear models & longitudinal extensions to nonlinear models forms (e.g., logistic). Course emphasizes complexities that repeated measures has on the estimation process & opportunities it provides if data is modeled appropriately. Most time is spent on 2 approaches: mixed models based upon explicit (latent variable) maximum likelihood estimation of the sources of the dependence, versus empirical estimating equation approaches (generalized estimating equations). Primary focus is from the analysis side.
Longitudinal Data Analysis: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
PH 243A teaches students to construct efficient estimators & obtain robust inference for parameters that utilize data-adaptive estimation strategies (i.e., machine learning). Students perform hands-on implementation of novel estimators using high-dimensional data structures, providing students with a toolbox for analyzing complex longitudinal, observational & randomized control trial data. Students learn & apply the core principles of the Targeted Learning methodology, which generalizes machine learning to any estimand of interest; obtains an optimal estimator of the given estimand, grounded in theory; integrates state-of-the-art ensemble machine learning techniques; & provides formal statistical inference in confidence intervals & testing.
Targeted Learning: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2004
This course follows PBHLTH 243A as a two part series. It provides a self-contained introduction to the computational tools for Targeted Learning through it's accompanying software ecosystem, the tlverse. Each class incorporates a concise preliminary lecture, vignette-guided live coding exercises, and discussion. Students will have the opportunity to perform hands-on implementation of novel estimators for answering causal questions with real- world cross-sectional data using the tlverse software ecosystem of R packages.
Targeted Learning in Practice: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
An introduction to new information systems, such as the Internet and interactive television, and how they may be used to improve human health. The course has three objectives: first, to familiarize students with new information technologies; second, to review how these technologies will be used by public health professionals, consumers, health care providers, and others; and third, to study related ethical and legal issues such as privacy, access, and liability. The course is designed for people with minimal understanding of interactive technologies.
Information Systems in Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
Big Data deluge now engulfs almost every brand of science and business, requiring expertise in combination of statistics and computing. This course aims to help students develop a set of useful skills to cope with the Big Data challenges, with particular focus on Public Health applications. It covers a wide range of modern statistics and machine learning techniques, as well as state of the art computational tools, and emphasizes statistical modeling and inference (e.g., how to properly formulate a hypothesis and a model, develop intuitive insights and interpretations, and evaluate uncertainty of the outcomes) and covers important computational and algorithmic components (modern computational paradigm of Map-Reduce).
Big Data: A Public Health Perspective: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
The following topics are discussed in the context of biomedical and biological application: multiple regression, loglinear models, discriminant analysis, principal components. Instruction in statistical computing is given in the laboratory session.
Introduction to Multivariate Statistics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
The goal of this course is to give biostatistics graduate students structured opportunities to work with domain researchers, hone consulting skills, and receive feedback. Consulting is a core ability necessary for success in both academia and industry that we explicitly emphasize in our training program. While student expertise may sometimes not be sufficient to fully resolve the problems raised by collaborators, it is precisely the process of encountering these new problems or of translating unfamiliar scenarios to formal statistical terms that cultivates growth and statistical maturity.
Simultaneously, this provides free quantitative consulting service accessible to MPH students working on their capstone projects.
Biostatistics Consulting: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
The objective of this course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of proposal writing for epidemiologic research. The course will focus primarily on developing an NIH Research Grant (R Series), though we will also discuss other grant mechanisms. In addition, the course will cover the grant submission process and grand review. Students will write a formal proposal focusing on a specific research question of their choice. Emphasis will be placed on development of significant and innovative research aims, critical evaluation of the previous literature and proposing a valid and feasible approach to address their research question.
Grant Writing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course will introduce principles and methods of epidemiology, including types and sources of descriptive epidemiologic data, study designs (intervention trials, cohort, case-control, cross-sectional and ecological), confounding and other types of bias, causal inference, and screening. The course will provide a basic understanding of epidemiology for those pursuing a career in public health, will explain the role of quantitative methods in describing a population’s health, and will emphasize the importance of evidence in advancing public health knowledge.
Epidemiologic Methods I: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
This course is intended as an intermediate level course in the field of epidemiology. Topics include causal inference; measurement of disease rates; inferential reasoning; and research study designs including ecologic, case-control, cohort, intervention trials, and meta-analytic designs (potential sources of bias, confounding, and effect modification in each research design are explored in depth); topics in clinical epidemiology including the use of likelihood ratios, receiver operator curves, and the sensitivity, specificity, predictive value of a test; and a brief introduction to logistic regression, survival analysis, and decision analysis. The readings from this course are drawn primarily from advanced epidemiology textbooks (Kleinbuam, Rothman, Miettinen). The course is intended to provide a firm foundation for students who will subsequently enroll in 250C.
Epidemiologic Methods II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
This course is an intermediate level course in epidemiology. It replaces previously approved and delivered courses PHW250F and PHW250G. Topics include causal inference; measurement of disease rates; inferential reasoning; research study designs, ecologic, case-control, cohort, intervention trials, meta-analytic designs; potential sources of bias, confounding, effect modification in research design are explored in depth; topics in clinical epidemiology, likelihood ratios, receiver operator curves, the sensitivity, specificity, predictive value of a test; brief introduction to logistic regression and survival analysis. Topics are covered at a advanced level than PH250A or PHW250. Readings from this course provide a firm foundation for PH250C.
Epidemiologic Methods II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
This course will cover a series of advanced analytical methods for epidemiologic research, drawing heavily on concepts covered in PH 250B. The course consists of a series of modules, including modeling of epidemiological measures of effect, Bayesian methods, instrumental variable analysis, mediation analysis, missing data, sensitivity analysis and methods to address sources of systematic error in epidemiologic research. Hands-on application is emphasized. Class time will consist of lectures, class discussion, student presentations and a weekly practicum.
Advanced Epidemiologic Methods: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course is intended as an intermediate level course in the field of epidemiology. Topics include causal inference; measurement of disease rates; inferential reasoning; and research study designs including ecologic, case-control, cohort, intervention trials, and meta-analytic designs. These topics are covered at a more advanced level than in PH250A or PHW250. The readings from this course are drawn primarily from advanced epidemiology textbooks (e.g., Kleinbaum, Rothman). The course is intended to provide a firm foundation for students who will later enroll in 250C.
Epidemiologic Methods II: Part 1: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
This introductory graduate course presents principles & methods of epidemiology, including descriptive & analytic approaches to assessing the distributions of health, disease & injury in the population & factors influencing those distributions. Emphasis is on developing an understanding of concepts, rather than quantitative methods. Basic calculations are involved. Course consists of readings, critical review of epidemiology papers, brief video lectures to explain
key concepts, quizzes & exams that allow students to practice applying epidemiological concepts. Students without prior coursework in epidemiology will acquire the core competencies in epidemiology expected of all MPH graduates. Course shares the same content & learning of PH 250A
Epidemiologic Methods I: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2025 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2024 Second 6 Week Session, Summer 2023 Second 6 Week Session
This introductory graduate-level course presents the principles and methods of epidemiology, including descriptive and analytic approaches to assessing the distributions of health, disease, and injury in populations and factors that influence those distributions. The emphasis is on developing an understanding of concepts, rather than quantitative methods, although calculations are involved. Through the combination of lectures, readings, critical review of papers, and problem sets, students without prior coursework in epidemiology will acquire the core competencies in epidemiology expected of all MPH graduates.
Epidemiologic Methods: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
In this course we will discuss the theory behind effective graphical design, how to apply this theory to communicating health data to different audiences, and how to produce a variety of graphical types using primarily the ggplot command in the statistical analysis program R. There are two lectures per week accompanied by readings. Generally, the course content and assignments alternate weekly between theory and R programming.
Data Visualization for Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This is an intensive, one-semester introduction to the R programming language for applied epidemiology. R is a freely available, multi-platform (Mac OS, Linux, and Windows, etc.), versatile, and powerful program for statistical computing and graphics (http://www.r-project.org). This course will focus on core basics of organizing, managing, and manipulating epidemiologic data; basic epidemiologic applications; introduction to R programming; and basic R graphics.
Applied Epidemiology Using R: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
The course examines principles & methods underlying the use of R, emphasizing multi-disciplinary, collaborative, & real world uses. We will emphasize practices for collaborative coding using Git/GitHub repositories for storing & sharing code to benefit not only your current collaborators but your most frequent collaborator. We will introduce best practices for organizing data & projects, how to create reproducible examples (a.k.a reprex) for when you get stuck and need to ask the R community for help (but can’t share a full dataset because it’s too large or contains confidential information). Application of principles will be taught through scenarios that public health practitioners encounter.
R for Public Health: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This 4-unit course will cover modern quantitative methods relevant to epidemiologic research drawing heavily on concepts covered in PB HLTH 250B. Course topics include generalized linear models, Kaplan-Meier estimation, survival distributions, and models for parametric and semi-parametric survival analysis. We will also cover methods for confounder selection, dose-response modeling, and interaction and effect modification.
Epidemiological Analysis: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
With the ongoing “data explosion”, methods to delineate causation from correlation are perhaps more pressing now than ever. This course will introduce a general framework for Causal Inference in Public Health: 1) clear statement of the research question, 2) definition of the causal model and effect of interest, 3) assessment of identifiability, 4) choice and implementation of estimators including parametric and non-parametric methods, and 5) appropriate interpretation of findings. The statistical methods include G-computation, inverse probability weighting (IPW), and targeted minimum loss-based estimation (TMLE) with machine learning.
Introduction to Causal Inference and the Causal Roadmap: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
This course will lead students through the process of designing mathematical models of infectious diseases, fitting these models to data, and using them as public health tools to design effective control strategies. Examples are drawn from COVID-19, HIV, influenza, Ebola, and mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and Zika virus. Each class consists of a lecture followed by a computer-based activity to apply the material. Students also work on a project in which they design their own model and use it to answer a specific research question.
Infectious Disease Modeling: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Students learn through pre-recorded lectures. There are graded student presentations of final course project to interpret and design clinical and population-level field trials in addition to a written midterm. Topics: formulation of a testable trial hypothesis; identification of appropriate study populations; blinding (including indices for assessment); randomization (including traditional and adaptive); sample size estimation; recruitment strategies; data collection systems; quality control and human subjects responsibilities; adverse effects monitoring; improving participant adherence; use of surrogate outcomes; preparation of a meta-analysis summarizing a group of trials.
Intervention Trial Design: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
This course presents a general framework for causal inference using directed acyclic graphs, non-parametric structural equation models, and counterfactuals. Marginal structural models and causal effect estimation using inverse probability of treatment weighting, G-computation, and targeted maximum likelihood are introduced. In two-part presentations, students will define and implement research questions.
Introduction to Causal Inference: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Fall 2021
The course will be conducted as a seminar with readings and discussions on a range of more advanced topics. We will cover case-control designs; longitudinal causal models, identifiability and estimation; direct and indirect effects; dynamic regimes (individualized treatment rules); approaches for diagnosing and responding to violations in the positivity assumption. Additional topics may include stochastic interventions, community-based interventions, and Collaborative-TMLE. There will also be some guest lectures and presentations from current students and faculty members.
Advanced Topics in Causal Inference: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2025
This 4-unit course will cover modern quantitative methods relevant to epidemiologic research drawing heavily on concepts covered in PB HLTH 250B. Course topics include generalized linear models, Kaplan-Meier estimation, survival distributions, and models for parametric and semi-parametric survival analysis. We will also cover methods for confounder selection, dose-response modeling, and interaction and effect modification.
Epidemiologic Analysis: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
A discussion of major infectious diseases with emphasis on disease surveillance, investigative procedures, and prevention programs. Emphasis is on current problems in health agencies at a state, national, and international level.
Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Diseases: Read More [+]