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MPH Curriculum
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14 Weeks
Semester I |
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Essentials of Public Health
Public Health Ethics
Essentials of Public Health Mgmt
Essentials of Health Behavior
Public Health Field Practicum I
MPH Thesis I |
3
3
3
3
2
1
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15 |
14 Weeks
Semester II |
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Public Health Law
Healthcare Finance & Economics
International Public Health
Health Policy Analysis
Public Health Field Practicum II
MPH Thesis II |
3
3
3
3
2
1
|
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15 |
14 Weeks
Semester II |
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Biostatistics and Public Health
Essentials of Environmental Health
Managed Care & Public Health
Healthcare Management: Profit & Non-Profit
Public Health Field Practicum III
MPH Thesis III |
3
3
3
3
2
1
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15 |
The Masters in Public Health (MPH) curriculum at the Aristotle University School of Public Health (AUSPH) includes the five core disciplines of public health: Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Environmental Health Science, Health Policy and Management, and Social and Behavioral Sciences. Knowledge and skills in these disciplines equip the graduate to analyze and consider solutions to public health problems at the community, institutional, and societal levels. The AUSPH offers the Master of Public Health (MPH) degree either as a distance-learning or hybrid format (combination of onsite and distance-learning). Areas of emphasis of study for the MPH include either Healthcare Management, Bioethics & Public Health Law, Global Health Diplomacy, or Global Public Health.
The MPH program offered as a part of the Aristotle University – Coast Plaza Doctors Hospital (AU-CPDH) teaching program for Physician Assistants and Podiatric Surgery residents has a discipline-specific competency emphasis on Healthcare Management, and is thus consistent with the interdisciplinary/cross-cutting competencies Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) model.
- MPH Course Descriptions
- Semester I MPH Courses
Essentials of Public Health (3 Units)
This course introduces students to the field of public health and how it works. It defines and describes the public health system, provides concepts and tools for measuring health in populations, characterizes the relationship of the public health system with medical care and other elements of the overall health system, and identifies government’s unique contributions through federal, state, and local public health agencies. Additionally, the overall public health workforce is considered and jobs in public health administration, epidemiology, public health nursing, health education, and other professional positions are discussed. Public health emergency preparedness and response, environmental and occupational health, epidemiology and control are also covered.
Essentials of Public Health Management (3 Units)
This course considers topics such as the history of public health; legal basis for local departments of health; assessing community health; local public health operations; interactions with local government; fundamentals of management: theory and applications; organizational behavior; employee recruitment, selection; wage and salary considerations; relations with the local Board of Health; interactions with colleague health commissioners; emergency preparedness: terrorism, accidents, and natural disasters; crisis management; bioterrorism; the media; the general public; marketing public health and pubic health departments.
Essentials of Health Behavior (3 Units)
Because health promotion, education, and prevention programs ultimately focus on changing health behavior, this course provides the groundwork for understanding, assessing, and effectively applying theories of human behavior within the practice of public health. In this course the student will learn the kinds of social and behavioral theories that guide our understanding of health related behavior and form the background for health promotion and prevention efforts. The relation of behavior to health issues such as obesity/cardiovascular disease; youth violence and HIV/AIDS will be addressed. Other course topics include: theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behavior; social cognitive theory; social network theories; social marketing; community and organizational change; political economy; anthropology and cultural theory – behavior as adaptation; community intervention and the complexity of communities; communities as experts; communicating through the public media; communications campaigns; application of theory: global health; high risk and special populations; and types of evaluations and kinds of impact or outcome.
Public Health Ethics (3 Units)
This courses is a survey course of public health ethics. It considers such topics as: sick individuals and sick populations; rethinking the meaning of public health; autonomy and paternalism; ethical and social dilemmas of governmental policy; justice and health; prosperity, redistribution, health, and welfare; social determinants of health; the social determinants of health inequalities; surveillance and privacy; ethical and legal issues posed by severe acute respiratory syndrome; ethical issues in the vaccination of children; bioterrorism and the ideologies of public health; regulating toxic substances: a philosophy of science and the law; genetic screening from a public health perspective: three ethical principles; the environmental genome project: ethical, legal, and social implications; the complex relationship of genetics, groups, and health: what it means for public health; and genetic research and health disparities.
Public Health Field Practicum I (2 Units)
The field study program is intended to give students the opportunity to spend time practicing newly acquired skills and knowledge, as well as to explore new or different areas of interest in healthcare industry. This is a required course for the MPH in each MPH semester. Where possible, students will organize into teams and each team will select a healthcare setting problem or a healthcare policy issue for its project. Team members must work together jointly, and not divide the project into exclusive parts. Team members will be grading each other’s participation in the project on a confidential form. Each team will submit a written report, and make a public presentation to the class or in an appropriate setting. Team members will act as consultants, research the historical, current, and potential scenarios related to their topic. Students should properly identify the stakeholders as related to their topic or policy issue and the impact of potential scenarios on each major stakeholder. The final report and the presentation should include, de minimis: Financial issues (cost and benefit to stakeholders); Delivery issues (demographic considerations); Evaluation (frequency, methods, cost). The final written report should be approximately 15-20 pages, exclusive of a one page Executive Summary. The supporting documents should be included in the appendices part of the report. The report should contain sound organizational structure, such as the following major components: I. Introduction / Background; II. Blend of Literature Review and Industry Comparisons; III. Presentation of the current situation with supporting data; IV. Possible Alternative Solutions with Feasibility and Consequences; V. Conclusions.
MPH Thesis I (1 Unit)
This MPH Thesis course is intended to guide the student in preparation of their MPH Thesis. This course is taken each semester of the MPH program and is intended to progressively prepare the student in the design, organization, research and preparation of their MPH Thesis and public defense.
- Semester II MPH Courses
Healthcare Finance & Economics (3 Units)
This course addresses important healthcare finance issues critical to non-profit and for-profit healthcare facilities, such as: financial information and the decision-making process billing and coding for health services; financial environment of health care organizations; legal and regulatory environment; revenue determination; managed care; general principles of accounting; financial statements; accounting for inflation; analyzing financial statements; financial analysis of alternative health care firms; strategic financial planning; cost concepts and decision making; product costing; management control processes; cost variance analysis; financial mathematics; capital project analysis; consolidations and mergers; capital formation; working capital and cash management; and developing a cash budget.
Health Policy Analysis (3 Units)
This course provides a compilation of carefully selected readings which address a basic overview of public health policy issues. Examples of topics which this course addresses includes: topics in health care quality; centers on the intersection of policy and law with medicine and ethics; offers several resources on the topic of health system reform; and considers a series of resources collectively called “tools for health policy analysis.” Topics include: what is public health? Jacobson v. Massachusetts; DeShaney v. Winnebago County Social Services Department; the quality of health care delivered to adults in the United States; analyzing Pandora’s box: the history of bioethics; morality, politics, and health policy; health centers and health insurance: complements, not alternatives; insurance coverage; and framing the public policy question: financial incentives for efficiency and effectiveness.
International Public Health (3 Units)
This course addresses the foundations and principles of international public health or global health. Commonly addressed topics include: why study global health? health, public health, and global Health; critical global health concepts; the Millennium Development Goals; health determinants, measurements, and trends; the importance of measuring health status; the determinants of health; key health indicators; understanding and measuring the burden of disease; health, education, the economy, and poverty; health, productivity, and earnings; health, the costs of illness, and poverty; health expenditure and health outcomes; human rights and global health; an introduction to health systems; the concept of culture and the importance of culture to health; the importance of nutrition; the determinants of nutritional status; nutritional needs through the life cycle; the importance and determinants of women’s health; the burden of health conditions for females; the costs and consequences of women’s health problems; the importance of child health; the burden of disease of child health; infections diseases and their impact to the burden of disease; the importance and burden of non-communicable diseases and unintentional injuries; the characteristics of natural disasters the characteristics of complex emergencies; the health burden of natural disasters; the importance of natural disasters and complex emergencies to global health; the health effects of complex humanitarian emergencies; cooperating to improve global health; trends in global health efforts; science, technology, and the public’s health; constraints to applying science and technology to global health problems.
Public Health Law (3 Units)
This course considers the foundational legal basis of public health law in America; duties of government; public health emergencies and state and federal law; public health preparedness; quarantines; investigations; forced vaccinations; public health law in bioterrorism; SARS and legal preparedness; mental health aspects of disaster; medical errors; and contemporary slavery (international trafficking of women and children) for commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, the exploitation of immigrant females for domestic services, the sale of children for irregular inter-country adoption, and the sale of wives legalized by transnational marriages.
Public Health Field Practicum II (2 Units)
The field study program is intended to give students the opportunity to spend time practicing newly acquired skills and knowledge, as well as to explore new or different areas of interest in healthcare industry. This is a required course for the MPH in each MPH semester. In this Semester of Public Health Field Practicum, the student(s) will work together on another public health field project. Where possible, students will organize into teams and each team will select a healthcare setting problem or a healthcare policy issue for its project. Team members must work together jointly, and not divide the project into exclusive parts. Team members will be grading each other’s participation in the project on a confidential form. Each team will submit a written report, and make a public presentation to the class or in an appropriate setting. Team members will act as consultants, research the historical, current, and potential scenarios related to their topic. Students should properly identify the stakeholders as related to their topic or policy issue and the impact of potential scenarios on each major stakeholder. The final report and the presentation should include, de minimis: Financial issues (cost and benefit to stakeholders); Delivery issues (demographic considerations); Evaluation (frequency, methods, cost). The final written report should be approximately 15-20 pages, exclusive of a one page Executive Summary. The supporting documents should be included in the appendices part of the report. The report should contain sound organizational structure, such as the following major components: I. Introduction / Background; II. Blend of Literature Review and Industry Comparisons; III. Presentation of the current situation with supporting data; IV. Possible Alternative Solutions with Feasibility and Consequences; V. Conclusions.
MPH Thesis II (1 Unit)
This MPH Thesis course is intended to guide the student in preparation of their MPH Thesis. In MPH II the student completes significant literature research and begins the substantive writing of the MPH Thesis.
- Semester III MPH Courses
Biostatistics and Public Health (3 Units)
This is a survey biostatistics and public health course which considers topics such as what is biostatistics?, the types of observations study designs (case report/case series; cross-sectional survey; cohort study; case-control study and the nested case-control study); the types of experimental study designs (RCT or clinical trial; the crossover trial); prevalence; incidence; risk difference, attributable risk; risk ratio; dichotomous variables; descriptive statistics; continuous variables; probability; evaluating screening tests; confidence and interval estimates; hypothesis testing; power and sample size determinates.
Essentials of Environmental Health (3 Units)
This course addresses the significance of the environment for human health; population and the environment; environmental epidemiology; contributions of epidemiology to environmental health; strategies of environmental epidemiology; causality in epidemiologic studies; environmental toxicology; environmental policy and regulation; zoonotic and vector-borne diseases; arthropod-borne viral diseases (arboviral diseases); emerging zoonoses; toxic metals and elements; overview of sources and effects of exposure to metals; toxic heavy metals; essential metals with potential for toxicity; pesticides and other organic chemicals; ionizing and non-ionizing radiation; nuclear waste disposal; water quality and treatment of water for residential consumption; air quality; notorious air pollution episodes in history; sources and causes of air pollution; components of air pollution; health effects of air pollution; global climate change and global warming; controlling air pollution and global warming food safety; the global burden of foodborne illness; categories of food hazards; common microbial agents of foodborne illness; solid and liquid wastes; solid waste management; disposal of hazardous materials and wastes; sewage processing and disposal; significance of the occupational environment for health; overview of agents of occupational disease; specific occupationally associated diseases and conditions.
Healthcare Management: Profit & Non-Profit (3 Units)
The non-profit sector of health delivery organizations comprise amongst the largest sectors in US health care. Non-profit healthcare organizations will be studied with an emphasis on historical implications, differences in operations and marketing, application of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, special fiduciary duties of Board of Directors; the ethical challenges of non-profit healthcare organizations; and shareholder v. Board relationships. This course considers the general operations of profit and non-profit healthcare organizations, while considering the many outside forces influencing health care institutions. Relevant case studies are used. General areas of study include: essential foundational material on the U.S. health system; a review of the essentials of healthcare management; an examination of the crucial area of corporate compliance; a look at how consumerism affects the healthcare organization; and a model of accountable management that begins with a re-conceptualization of strategic planning and ends with an analysis of the accountable organization. Additional topics include management and duties of the Board of Directors; Theory Z; legal imperatives; corporate compliance; and strategic health planning.
Managed Care & Public Health (3 Units)
This course addresses the basic features of managed care and how managed care relates to public health. Pertinent topics covered in this course include the history and evolution of managed care; types of managed health care organizations and their basic structure; the health care delivery system: network management and reimbursement in managed health care systems; the management of medical utilization and quality in managed health care; internal operations and managed health care organizations; special markets in managed health care; and the regulatory, legal and accreditation aspects of managed health care.
Public Health Field Practicum III (2 Units)
The field study program is intended to give students the opportunity to spend time practicing newly acquired skills and knowledge, as well as to explore new or different areas of interest in healthcare industry. This is a required course for the MPH in each MPH semester. In this Semester of Public Health Field Practicum, the student(s) will work together on another public health field project. Where possible, students will organize into teams and each team will select a healthcare setting problem or a healthcare policy issue for its project. Team members must work together jointly, and not divide the project into exclusive parts. Team members will be grading each other’s participation in the project on a confidential form. Each team will submit a written report, and make a public presentation to the class or in an appropriate setting. Team members will act as consultants, research the historical, current, and potential scenarios related to their topic. Students should properly identify the stakeholders as related to their topic or policy issue and the impact of potential scenarios on each major stakeholder. The final report and the presentation should include, de minimis: Financial issues (cost and benefit to stakeholders); Delivery issues (demographic considerations); Evaluation (frequency, methods, cost). The final written report should be approximately 15-20 pages, exclusive of a one page Executive Summary. The supporting documents should be included in the appendices part of the report. The report should contain sound organizational structure, such as the following major components: I. Introduction / Background; II. Blend of Literature Review and Industry Comparisons; III. Presentation of the current situation with supporting data; IV. Possible Alternative Solutions with Feasibility and Consequences; and V, Conclusions.
MPH Thesis III (1 Unit)
This MPH Thesis course is intended to guide the student in preparation of their MPH Thesis. This course is taken each semester of the MPH program and is intended to progressively prepare the student in the design, organization, research and preparation of their MPH Thesis and public defense. In this sequence of the MPH Thesis III courses, the Thesis is finalized and preparations are completed for a public defense.
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