Graduate Course Directory and Schedules

The key culminating step for each MPH student is the Integrative Project (IP). Through the IP, a high-quality written product is produced, which we call the “IP paper.” Through the IP paper, students demonstrate their academic learning and public health practice skills through the synthesis of foundational and program competencies and application of those competencies to complex public health issues. The paper will take the form of a substantial written product such as a program evaluation, policy or economic analysis, grant proposal, health promotion or community engagement program plan, publishable manuscript, or other written product that demonstrates integration of three foundational (one must include Foundational Competency #6) and three program competencies. Appropriate types of written products vary by program, type of practice experience (if the two are integrated), and the student’s career goals. We recommend (but do not require) that the IP paper build upon work conducted in the Practice Experience. For example, students may write a high-quality written paper using the findings from a statistical analysis performed in support of a research project that is separate from their Practice Experience.

More Information on Integrative Project

Persistent challenges in public health—such as health disparities, disease prevention, and implementation of evidence-based health interventions—are often resistant to efforts to change the status quo. Factors at multiple socioecological levels interact in complex ways to produce outcomes that impact health and wellbeing. Standard analytic approaches are limited in their ability to account for this complexity. Systems thinking is an alternative but complementary approach that uses certain strategies and tools for better understanding complex problems and identify potential points of effective intervention. This course provides an introduction to systems thinking for public health professionals. Students learn to apply practical approaches for identifying system characteristics, feedback dynamics driving health and implementation outcomes, and interventions tailored to context. We will also critically engage with broader questions regarding sustained transformation of social systems to ensure health and health equity at the population scale.

Students must attend a PE orientation (via canvas.pdx.edu) prior to registering and are encouraged to attend a PE info session. Detailed information about the PE can be found on the Practice Experience SPH webpage.

PEs are a total of 4 credits and 160 “contact hours.” Students demonstrate 5 competencies via at least two deliverables, as well as submit a learning agreement (the term before PE registration), a midway progress report, a portfolio, and perform an oral presentation.

Biostats students register for BSTA 509PE. PHP students register for CPH 509PE. Epi students for EPI 504PE. ESHH students register for ESHH 509PE. HSMP students register for HSMP 509PE. HP students register for PHE 504PE.
 

Prerequisite

Consent of PE Coordinator required.

Public health practitioners track population data to plot disease trends and associated patterns of social and biological determinants of health disparities. This course will cover concepts of basic mapping using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Types and sources of data will be reviewed, along with their uses for understanding demographic and socioeconomic trends. This is an asynchronous, online “lab” course based on tutorials and case studies. Students interested in a strong understanding of underlying GIS principles should consider GEOG 588 instead of this course.

Slash Listed Courses

Also offered as CPH 615 for doctoral students.

Traditionally, public health findings and surveillance data are disseminated through publications and reports designed for the academic and scientific community. Today, with growing access to public health data for the general population, there is also the increasing risk of data being misunderstood, misused or poorly interpreted. Thus we have a significant role in synthesizing, interpreting and presenting data in ways that nonscientific audiences can understand and use. The purpose of this course is to explore public health surveillance systems; retrieve and analyze data for health disparities and inequities, and develop communication approaches regarding the findings for: the community at risk, the general public, policy makers, and the press. Principles of communicating scientific data to lay audiences and the concept of “place based approaches” as effective framing language will be explored. The strengths and limitations of various data presentation formats will be tested as students research different audiences and determine what data to use, the key messages, and how to present the data effectively.

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register in the CPH 622 section.

This course will utilize epidemiologic methods and frameworks to explore patterns of disease, disability and other public health issues with an emphasis on epidemiologic findings and surveillance as a tool for resource allocation, policy development, and health reform. Students will examine public health systems and practice the application of epidemiologic tools to better understand prevention and control of communicable diseases in diverse populations.

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register for the CPH 627 section.

Public health is the convergence of science, policy, politics, ethics, and activism. From a social justice perspective, public health can be better enacted through the examination and remediation of injustice and inequality. Therefore, this course will involve both intra-reflective and inter-reflective examination of the social and structural inequalities and injustices within our society, locally and globally, and how they impact approaches to promote public health, with a specific emphasis for minoritized populations. The role of a human rights perspective in producing public health and how human rights cut across law, ethics, policies, and advocacy in public health is examined. The role of a human rights perspective will also be addressed as an important part of international health practice.

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register for the CPH 631 section.

This course examines Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) as a research paradigm to understand and address health disparities at the community level. Review of operating principles includes the central place that communities are accorded as units of identity and as co-equals in research, a process that is perceived by community constituents as not dominated by elitists, an emphasis on long-term commitment by all partners, emphasis on co-learning so that the process flows back and forth, use of exercises that stimulate collective visioning among all partners, incorporation of social ecology approaches as departures for research and practice, use of innovative problem solving approaches and use of multiple methods of data collection. Topics include community theory, development strategies, promising interventions, group development techniques, community diagnosis, and capacity assessments.

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register in the CPH 636 section.

This course provides an introduction to program planning and experience in the grant writing process, with an emphasis on public health intervention programs. Students will be introduced to program planning, with an emphasis on logic models. Students will be introduced to the key areas of a proposal that must be addressed in grant writing.

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register for the CPH 650 section.