Courses

The course descriptions below are correct to the best of our knowledge as of June 2010. Instructors reserve the right to update and/or otherwise alter course descriptions as necessary after publication. The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. The Course Rotation Guide lists the expected semester a course will be taught. Paper copies are also available in the BUSPH Registrar’s office. Please refer to the published schedule of classes for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• SPH IH 811: Applied Research Methods in International Health
  The objective of this course is to teach student teams how to collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data to answer study questions. Student teams will conduct a research study with multiple research methods including a cross-sectional survey and their choice from a variety of qualitative methods. The scope of the research questions addressed will be limited to minimal risk research conducted with students on the Boston University Medical Campus in the space of a semester. Each team will design a questionnaire, administer it, and enter and analyze the data using EpiInfo or other statistical software. In conjunction with the cross-sectional survey, each team will also use some form of qualitative method, such as in-depth interviews or focus group discussions (FGD). The student teams will integrate the results of the cross-sectional survey and the qualitative research and present a report with findings and recommendations to their peers and faculty members. Students completing the course will have the skills to be able to collect and analyze data in a wide variety of settings.
• SPH IH 820: Global Issues in Pharmaceutical Policy and Programming
  Pharmaceutical policies are changing rapidly in developing countries. Ensuring access, maintaining quality, and promoting rational drug use are the priorities. This course examines national drug policies, selection issues, medicine pricing and availability, financing, health insurance, donations, and the role of the private sector and approaches to improving drug use. The impact of global treaties and particularly the TRIPS agreement WTO and access to AIDS drugs will be addressed. The course will also examine the role of global and bilateral donor programs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The course will utilize a seminar format and will require substantial reading to prepare for small group discussions and activities.
• SPH IH 854: From Data to Dashboards: Building Excel Skills to Support Health Program Decisions
  In these uncertain times, managers need, more than ever, to make sound decisions based on data. Good spreadsheet models are important tools in this process. Build your Excel "toolbox" by learning and applying robust formulas, graphing and dashboarding techniques, and data analysis in a wide range of real-world case study examples, such as cost and utilization analysis, estimation of revenues and expenses, and performance dashboards to monitor and evaluate performance of health interventions. Students will have the opportunity to build their own models to apply to a health service challenge of their choosing.
• SPH IH 870: Managing Disasters and Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
  The incidence and severity of public health emergencies due to violent armed conflict and natural disasters continues to affect large numbers of people and even larger amounts of property. Complex humanitarian emergencies (CHEs) now affect most regions of the world, and the violent and chaotic nature of CHEs has produced an enormous burden on relief efforts due to population displacement, morbidity, and mortality. This course prepares participants to function effectively in emergency relief situations. Topics covered include causes and consequences of disasters, initial responses, and meeting basic needs such as food, water, healthcare, and shelter. Specific attention will be paid to potential public health problems and interventions. This program also emphasizes critical field management, coordination, logistical skills, project design, and monitoring and evaluation. Methods to phase out emergency relief efforts and manage the transition to longer-term sustainable development are also explored.
• SPH IH 871: Advanced Topics in International Health
  This advanced topics courses addresses a variety of topics pertinent to International Health in greater depth. They may or may not be offered in any given semester. See the print or web-based School of Public Health semester schedule for more information pertaining to the advanced topics course for a specific semester.
• SPH IH 880: Confronting non-communicable diseases in the developing world: the burden, costs and health systems challenges
  A combination of lower fertility rates and changing environmental factors and lifestyles has led to aging populations and epidemics of tobacco addiction, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes, and other chronic ailments, aggravating the persisting burden of infectious diseases in the developing world. This advanced course aims at providing a thorough understanding of the risk factors, epidemiology, burden, and economic consequences of the most prevalent non-communicable diseases and the fundamental policy considerations regarding intervention strategies for their prevention and control in resource constrained settings. This overall goal will be achieved by marrying economic approaches with those of epidemiology, clinical medicine and public health.
• SPH IH 881: Evidence-Based Program Design for Reproductive Health
  This course focuses on the evidence underpinning strategies to address major reproductive health RH) problems among adults in developing countries. For each RH problem, we will consider the key factors contributing to possible solutions – e.g., biological, social, epidemiological, health system, political and technological factors. Topics will include: maternal mortality, cervical cancer, family planning, abortion, HIV/AIDS, and infertility. Students will chose a specific topic and evaluate the evidence base, and write a 15-page program recommendation document for a ministry of health, NGO, or international agency.
• SPH IH 885: Global Trade, Intellectual Property and Public Health
  On the broadest level, any person interested in international public health, needs to know about globalization and trade. Globalization rewards creative and technically skilled workers and places its largest pressures on lower-skilled workers. A specific example of globalization is that of India and their embrace of new intellectual property (IP) laws. The implementation of these IP and trade rules lies somewhere between outright opposition to reforming global IP rules and an unthinking acceptance that doing so will encourage biomedical innovation and improved health outcomes. The effects of stronger IP standards on health and innovation in medicines and diagnostics are ambiguous and thus need to be subjected to empirical analysis. This course will explore the complex and ambiguous relationship between global trade, intellectual property and its impact on public health.
• SPH IH 887: Planning and Managing Maternal and Child Health Programs in Developing Countries
  This course provides a practical framework to enable students to design, manage, and evaluate services for children and women, with an emphasis on child health. The course covers the major health challenges with a focus on children and explores specific interventions to address these challenges. Topics covered include diarrheal disease, acute respiratory infection, immunization, malaria, micronutrient deficiencies, HIV/AIDS, safe motherhood and neonatal health. The final six weeks of the course will give students the opportunity to identify the technical, political, organizational, and environmental factors necessary for a successful program. Students will work in teams to respond to an RFP for improving the health of women, children, or newborns in a developing country. Teams will attend a bidder’s conference and then prepare and present a written and oral proposal to an outside grants committee. Students cannot take both IH744 and IH887 for MPH degree credit.
• SPH IH 888: Seminar on International Health Policy Issues
  This seminar focuses on policy formulation related to public health problems in low- and middle-income countries and is intended for students who have some experience. How is policy formulated in different settings? Who sets the policy agenda? Why do some issues get the attention of policy-makers, while other equally important issues fail to gain traction? And what approaches can be used to improve the chances of a particular policy being adopted? Students will carry out a policy analysis on a policy issue of their choice, using the policy analysis approaches and tools presented in class.
• SPH IH 890: Quantitative Methods & Modeling for Public Health Decision Making
  In designing health interventions and programs, decision makers must structure and clarify complex policy issues and explore the implications of different courses of action in the face of dynamic complexity and uncertainty. This advanced course introduces three model-based analytical methods-system dynamics, risk analysis and decision analysis-to equip students with the analytical skills necessary to formulate and use models for policy analysis. The course develops hands-on skills with two practical modeling building and simulation software programs, Stella and Crystal Ball, for application to public health and health care systems problems. Examples of public health applications may include infectious disease control and prevention, such as HIV/AIDS, obesity prevention, drug use, and health effects of exposure to environmental chemicals. The course is suited for students interested in career opportunities in health policy research and analysis.
• SPH IH 941: Directed Studies in International Health
  Directed Studies provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a full-time SPH faculty member. Students may register for a 1, 2, 3, or 4-credit directed study by submitting a paper registration form and a signed directed study proposal form. Students who are completing the concentration paper must register for a 2-credit directed study. Directed studies with a non-SPH faculty member or an adjunct faculty member must be approved by and assigned to the department chair. Students are placed in a section by the Registrar’s Office according to the faculty member with whom they are working. Students may take no more than eight credits of directed study, directed research, or practica courses during their MPH education.
• SPH IH 942: Directed Research in International Health
  This course provides the opportunity for advanced students to become involved in international health research of a public health nature or to undertake research independently. Arrangements are made with the appropriate full time IH faculty member. Students must submit a paper registration and a directed research proposal form signed by the supervising faculty. Directed research is a graded, variable credit course (1, 2, 3, or 4 credits). Students may complete a maximum of 8 directed study, directed research or practicum credits during their MPH program.
• SPH LW 707: Essentials of Public Health Law
  This MPH core course provides a general introduction to the role of law in the design and implementation of public health programs and the protection of the health interests of individuals and groups in society. It is designed for students who do not have prior experience or education in law, and covers the structure, concepts, and process of decision making on health matters in legislative, administrative, and judicial bodies. SPH LW751 Public Health Law, a more in-depth introduction to health law, also satisfies the MPH core course requirement. Health Law concentrators, law students, and lawyers are required to complete LW751 and should not take this course. International nonresident students are exempted from fulfilling the health law MPH core requirement. Students who take this course cannot take LW751 for degree credit.
• SPH LW 709: Health Care Rationing: Needs and Options
  Health care services are "rationed," or distributed in a limited way, in all nations. As the health care environment changes rapidly, competition for resources becomes more intense, insurers continue to consolidate and control many markets, and greater limitations on available funds for health care become a certainty, issues of potential or extant rationing in the United States take on a new urgency. How health care is or might be rationed here, what criteria exist and should be used, what effects are intended, and who should control the process are all increasingly pressing questions. There is much to learn from past practice as well as current concerns and proposals. Rationing of care is examined in its historical, ethical, philosophical, policy, clinical, logistical, social, legal, and administrative contexts. Students participate in class discussion, make an oral presentation, and complete a take-home exam. Extensive readings are involved. Attendance at all sessions is required.
• SPH LW 725: Ethical Issues in Medicine and Public Health
  This course reviews the nature and scope of moral dilemmas and problematic decision making in public health, medicine, and health care. After a survey of ethical theory, the course focuses on a broad range of ethical concerns raised by the theory and practice of public health and medicine: the nature of health, disease and illness, health promotion and disease prevention; rights, access, and the limits of health care; the physician-patient relationship; truthtelling and confidentiality. Through a series of case studies, the course examines specific topics: the bioethics movement and its critiques; human experimentation; the role of institutional review boards; the concept and exercise of informed, voluntary consent; abortion, reproduction, genetic counseling and screening; euthanasia, death and dying; ethics committees; and international and cross-cultural perspectives.
• SPH LW 739: Jewish Bioethics
  The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to resources for and approaches to Jewish biomedical ethics. Selected issues will be studied in some depth to develop the ability to interpret relevant primary sources and evaluate competing readings of these sources. Attention will be given to different approaches in interpreting and applying Jewish texts and values in addressing contemporary issues. We will then focus on medical ethics and the Holocaust. The historical experience of the Holocaust has had a major impact on contemporary Jewish ethicists. We will examine the relevance of the Nazi doctors, racial hygiene, euthanasia, and genocide for contemporary bioethics. The field of Jewish bioethics affords us the opportunity to explore the complex interface of philosophy, theology, halakha (Jewish law), and secular law and ethics. Students will also consider philosophical approaches in bioethics and their significance for Judaism. This course is taught with CAS RN 439/ GRS RN 739/ STH TX859 at Charles River Campus.
• SPH LW 740: Human Rights and Health
  This course is appropriate for both graduate and undergraduate students and is taught on the Charles River Campus. Students who have already taken LW721 cannot take LW740 for MPH degree candidate. These students should contact the Health Law Department (617-638-4626) for assistance. Health is closely linked to the realization of human rights. Preventable illness, infant mortality, and premature death, for example, are closely tied to societal discrimination and violation of human rights. This course explores the relationship between human rights and health by examining relevant international declarations in historical context, exploring the meaning of "human rights" and "health," and analyzing specific case studies that illuminate the problems, prospects, and potential methods of promoting health by promoting human rights on the national and international levels.
• SPH LW 751: Public Health Law
  This course introduces students to the legal system and to major legal issues and problems confronting the public health professional. By analyzing judicial decisions, students learn about legal analysis and conflict resolution and avoidance. Thus they learn to see the legal system as a tool that can be used to advance, rather than impede, the implementation of specific public health policies. Topics covered include state public health powers, federal activity in public health, medical malpractice, privacy and confidentiality of medical information, mental health law, abortion and sterilization, patients' rights, emergency medical care delivery, legal status of allied health professionals, human experimentation, and rights of the terminally ill. This course is a prerequisite for most other Health Law courses. Students who take this course cannot take LW707 for degree credit. Health Law concentrators must complete this course to fulfill the health law MPH core requirement.
• SPH LW 790: Research with Human Subjects - Legal and Ethical Standards
  The goal of this course is to provide students with the ability to identify and analyze the complex legal and ethical issues associated with conducting public health research with human subjects. Through readings, class discussion, class activities and writing assignments students will develop skills in interpreting and applying federal regulations, international conventions and ethical principles to various types of research projects, analyzing problems and dilemmas not adequately covered by law and evaluating how well our regulatory system protects human subjects.

Note that this information may change at any time.

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