Key Courses - MPH in Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences
RSPH Core Requirements
Students have the option to take either EPI 504 or EPI 530.
This course is designed to teach students the fundamentals of applied statistical data analysis. Students successfully completing this course will be able to: choose appropriate statistical analyses for a variety of data types; perform exploratory data analyses; implement commonly used one and two-sample hypothesis testing and confidence interval methods for continuous variables; perform tests of association for categorical variables; conduct correlation and simple linear regression analyses; produce meaningful reports of statistical analyses and provide sound interpretations of analysis results. Students will be able to implement the statistical methods learned using SAS and JMP software on personal computers.
The lab portion of BIOS 500 is designed with two purposes in mind: 1) to illustrate concepts and methods presented in the lectures using hands-on demonstrations and 2) to introduce SAS, a widely used statistical software package, as a data analysis tool. By the end of the semester, you should be able to produce and interpret statistical output for methods learned in BIOS 500 lecture.
Emphasizes the underlying concepts of the epidemiological approach, stressing study design. Discusses the calculation and interpretation of measures of frequency, association, and public health impact. Discusses sources of study error including the influence of chance, bias, confounding, and effect modification.
Prerequisite/concurrent: BIOS 500. Emphasizes the concepts and premises of the science of epidemiology. Methods of hypothesis formulation and evaluation are stressed. Techniques for quantifying the amount of disease (or other health indicator) in populations are introduced, followed by discussion of epidemiologic study designs useful for identifying etiologic factors and other relevant correlates of disease. Students gain facility with the calculation of basic epidemiologic measures of frequency, association, and impact. The concepts of random variability, bias, and effect modification are examined in detail. The use of stratified analysis, including Mantel-Haenszel techniques, is explored. Inferences from study results are discussed. Students are required to analyze and critique studies from the current medical and scientific literature.
Pre-requisites: GEH, GH, and GLEPI students may not enroll unless with departmental permission.
The overarching objective of GH 500 is to equip students with critical perspectives and resources that they will need as public health professionals and global citizens in our increasingly inter-connected and interdependent world. The course introduces students to: (1) fundamental cross-cutting themes that contextualize contemporary global health issues; and (2) selected health topical areas such as maternal and child health, pandemics, and non-communicable diseases. The course provides an overview of the past, present, and expected future directions of global health.
EH 500 is a survey course designed to introduce public health students to basic concepts of environmental sciences, to the methods used to study the interface of health and the environment, to the health impacts of various environmental processes and exposures, and to the public health approach to controlling or eliminating environmental health risks. To address these concepts, basic environmental health principles (exposure assessment, environmental toxicology, environmental epidemiology, risk assessment), as well as specific environmental health issues including water and air pollution, hazardous chemical/waste exposures, climate change, and environmental drivers of disease ecology, will be covered.
Required for all MPH students. Introduces students to the US health care system, both the public and private sector. Examines the structure of the health system, current topics in health care reform, the policy process, and advocacy for public health.
Online Asynchronous. 1 hour online module addressing 4 of the 12 CEPH required Foundational Knowledge items. The module will begin with an introduction to a "Public Health Perspective followed by the 4 items of foundational knowledge.
PUBH students will join students from health professional programs across the Woodruff Health Sciences Center to receive didactic training to perform effectively on interprofessional teams and to apply leadership and management principles to address a relevant public health issue. Interprofessional teams will compete in a health challenge competition designed to address public health and clinical issues of importance to the Atlanta community.
Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences Requirements
Students may take either BSHES 556, BSHES 557, or BHES 558.
Students may take either BSHES 590 or BSHES 599.
In addition to the courses below, students must take electives to meet 42 total credit hours.
Introduces an array of conceptual theories that posit different patterns of association among a variety of behavioral, psychological, and social antecedents that together can influence health outcomes. The theories covered in this course align with aggregating levels of influence at the individual, interpersonal, organizational/community and macrosocietal levels. In-class discussion and assignments will enable the learner to understand the value of theory for ethical practice, research design, and intervention development, to gain skills in applying theories for program/intervention design, implementation and evaluation.
The purpose of this course is to provide students with the academic background, technical skills and field experience to conduct a health-related community assessment (CA). The course encompasses the development of data about the health status, knowledge, perceptions, attitudes, motivation, and health practices of a population or community and its socioeconomic environment. Students will work with a team to prepare a community assessment report and presentation for a community/organization through community engaged learning.
Students learn and apply basic program planning skills, including analysis of the social-ecological and behavioral determinants of a health problem or issue, community assessment, theory-informed intervention design, implementation and evaluation.
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a foundation in designing and conducting an evaluation of a public health program. Students learn about various types of evaluation, with an emphasis on utilization-focused assessments. Further, students will apply the CDC Framework for Evaluation as they design and implement a small-scale public health evaluation for a community-based organization.
This data analysis course provides the student with the skills necessary to identify and analytically investigate theory-driven research questions with the goal to investigate behavioral, social and cultural factors that contribute to the health and well-being of individuals, communities, and populations using existing and new databases. In addition, students will learn how to interpret and present data, and communicate findings to a variety of audiences.
This course provides a thorough introduction to qualitative research methods in public health at multiple ecological levels. Students will be introduced to relevant aspects of qualitative research and develop their critical ability to evaluate qualitative methods. Students will undertake their own mini-qualitative studies in order to apply their skills to a public health topic.
This course provides a foundation in designing and conducting health promotion research. Students will learn about various types of research at multiple levels of the social ecological model. The goals of the course include achieving competence in designing studies based on scientifically sound research methodologies and gaining the ability to critically evaluate health promotion research.
In this course, we critically examine the history of public health to gain perspective on current health problems. Students analyze the history of public health institutions, concepts, and practices in the contexts of the history of the social determinants of health, culture, and changing ecologies of health and disease. This course also uses history to analyze health inequities with the goal of promoting health equity.
This course will introduce students to how racism operates at multiple ecological levels to create and maintain health inequities and proposed frameworks and approaches to promote health equity. Students will gain an understanding of racism as a public health issue.
This course provides an overview of racism as a driver of health inequities and interventions designed to dismantle racism to promote health equity. Racism causes harm at multiple ecological levels from the individual level (e.g., internalized racism) to the systemic level (e.g., oppressive & unjust policies & practices). This course will introduce students to how racism operates to create and maintain health inequities and proposed interventions (programs & policies) to promote health equity.
Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences
This graduate seminar introduces students in Public Health and other health sciences to Critical Race Theory (CRT) primarily as it originated in the field of Law with some consideration of its use in Education, American Studies and other disciplines (e.g., philosophy). While students will learn about CRT's origin and use outside of Public Health, the course focuses on how CRT has been used within the field of Public Health or may be used to advance health and healthcare equity. The Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP) model provides the framework around which the course is organized, the key concepts as well as the skills and approaches of the class. Key resources that PHCRP provides include a lexicon for advancing discussion of racial phenomena, a set of racism-conscious empirical approaches, and several guiding principles to encourage iterative attention to issues of equity in public health research and practice.
Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences
The Capstone seminars allow students to complete an individual project that allows them to integrate and apply knowledge, concepts, and skills learned in BSHES coursework to a topic of high public health relevance. Students can choose to take a Capstone course in Health Equity or Grant Writing. Students undertake an independent project that will result in a final 30-50 page paper and an oral presentation.
An Applied Practice Experience (APE) is a unique opportunity that enables students to apply practical skills and knowledge learned through coursework to a professional public health setting that complements the student's interests and career goals. The APE must be supervised by a Field Supervisor and requires approval from an APE Advisor designated by the student's academic department at RSPH.
Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences
Enables students to apply the principles and methods learned in an academic setting through the preparation of a scholarly document embodying original research applicable to public health, incorporating a research question that has been successfully evaluated with appropriate analytical techniques and is potentially publishable or has potential public health impact.