Master of Public Health

SHM 700 Health Services in the U.S.: A Lifespan Approach: The course provides a comprehensive introduction to the U.S. healthcare system. Healthcare terminology, concepts, critical issues, and a description of existing delivery systems are presented. The course includes the mission of public health, models of health promotion and disease prevention, and determinants of health and health services utilization. The organization, delivery, financing, payment, and staffing of the U.S. healthcare system is described. Issues of competition, regulation, technology, access, quality, primary care, long-term care, mental health, and bioethics are discussed.

MPH 735 Introduction to Public Health Concepts: This course is a comprehensive introduction to public health within the context of the U.S. healthcare system. Contents include the concept of public health, its problems in the context of social and community factors, its development from a historical perspective, the role and mission of public health organizations, and an overview of current health concepts, models, and policy.

MPH 651 Fundamentals of Research in Public Health: Life-long learning is an integral skill in the healthcare industry. The ability to become a life-long learner depends on sustainable assessment skills. In this course, we will focus on developing and enhancing your skills related to search strategies, problem statements, literature review, and proposal preparation. The integrated terminal project will be introduced during this course.

ATSU 820 History of Osteopathic Medicine: This course examines the history of osteopathic medicine. An overview of whole person healthcare and an integrated approach encompassing mind, body, and spirit will be provided enhancing a student’s understanding and appreciation for the mission of A.T. Still University.

MPH 745 Biostatistics: Biostatistics is the study and development of statistical, mathematical, and computational methods applied to the biological, health, and human sciences. Biostatisticians play a key role in the design, conduct, and analysis of research studies in the areas of health and disease, and they create and apply methods for quantitative research in health related fields. Topics covered in this course include: data description, probability, distribution of random variables, applications of the binomial and normal distributions, estimation and confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, contingency tables, regression, and analysis of variance. Additional topics include introduction to statistical computing and data management and non-parametric, or distribution free, statistical methods and demographic measures. Students will need to use a statistical program (Microsoft Excel® software or other program) to assist with computations.

MPH 775 Environmental Health Sciences: The course provides an introduction to ecology and ecological principles and how human population pressures affect them. Man's impact on biotic and abiotic components of the earth is examined as well as the environmental factors impacting public health. Particular emphasis is placed on the impact of anthropogenic, chemical, and physical stressors and their impact on various ecosystem components and man.

MPH 815 Public Health Systems Policy and Management: This is a survey course providing an overview of the policy process as applied to health. Similarly, it provides introductory content dealing with how public health and other health organizations are organized and managed.

MPH 860 Public Health Financial Management: The course provides an opportunity to apply basic budget and financial management concepts and techniques to public health services. Public health budgeting and finance is presented as an integrated approach enabling public health administrators to translate resource needs into budgets and to utilize financial information to: identify problems, evaluate alternatives, and recommend courses of action. Students will need to use Microsoft Excel® software for this course.

SHM 842 Human Resource Management: The course examines the building and management of a working human resources strategy. It introduces motivation, personality, leadership, and total quality theories. It explores the application of these theories to the management of individuals and groups. Organizational culture, job analysis, recruitment, retention, selection, placement, training, compensation, and organizational development are presented as a management continuum. The analysis of environmental, economic, and legal constraints and their impact on human resources strategies is presented. Management tools for improving human resource practices and productivity are introduced.

MPH 870 Public Health Biology: This course will explain the role of biology in the ecological model of population-based health. This course will integrate the general biological and molecular concepts into public health and will look at how biological, chemical, and physical agents affect human health.

SHM 750 Epidemiology: This course examines the study of disease in populations from a public health perspective. Topics include: research methods, study designs, sampling, data analysis, the interpretation of data, and the application of findings for public health policy.

MPH 864 Health Education Concepts and Applied Research: The course provides an overview of the social, environmental, behavioral, and epidemiological bases of health promotion, health education, and health communication approaches. Tools are developed and used for the assessment of community, institutional, and individual educational needs. Planning, implementation, and evaluation of health promotion, health education, and health communication strategies based on established theories and evidence-based practices are the foci of activities and discussions. The integrated terminal project will be finalized during this course.