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Graduate Course Directory and Schedules

Course Schedules

Download the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health’s 2024 – 2025 academic year course schedule.

Last Updated: 5.10.2024

Download Planning Schedule

Course Schedules by Term

Summer 2024 Planning Schedule

Last updated 4.19.2024
Download Summer Planning Schedule

Fall 2024 Planning Schedule

Last updated 5.10.2024
Download Fall Planning Schedule

Winter 2025 Planning Schedule

Last updated 10.28.2024
Download Winter Planning Schedule

Spring 2025 Planning Schedule

Last updated 5.10.2024
Download Spring Planning Schedule

View previous academic years course schedules per term for School of Public Health students – Archived GR Schedules.

SPH Course Descriptions

Descriptions of all School of Public Health courses can also be found in the course catalog of the most recent edition of the PSU Bulletin.

CPH 502IP – Integrative Project

Course CodeCredit

CPH 502IP

Course Information

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

CPH 507 – Seminar: Curricular Practical Training

Course CodeCredit

CPH 507

CPH 507 – Seminar: Systems Thinking for Public Health Practice

Course CodeCredit

CPH 507 / 607

Course Information

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.

CPH 507A – Current Issues in Public Health

Course CodeCredit

CPH 507A

3

Course Information

The purpose of this course is to analyze current and controversial issues in public health. The course provides an opportunity to discuss, analyze, make recommendations for and examine policy outcomes of issues, practices and current and historically controversial public health events.

CPH 509PE – Practice Experience

Course CodeCredit

CPH 509PE

4

Course Information

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.

CPH 511 / 611 – Introduction to Research Design

Course CodeCredit

CPH 511 / 611

3

Course Information

The purpose of this course is to enhance students’ abilities to comprehend critique and apply research methodology and research-based evidence. Students will locate and critically evaluate evidence generated from quantitative, qualitative, and epidemiological methods, with particular attention paid to statistical significance and clinically meaningful outcomes. Students will transform their own clinical inquisitiveness into practice-based researchable questions and focus on the application of research methods in clinical settings. Students will also gain experience in using publicly available databases and displaying data in a variety of formats.

Prerequisite

Statistics

Slash Listed Courses

Also offered as CPH 611

CPH 515 / 615 – Geographic Information Systems for Public Health

Course CodeCredit

CPH 515 / 615

Course Information

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.

CPH 521 / 621 – Social Determinants of Health

Course CodeCredit

CPH 521 / 621

3

Course Information

How do socioeconomic conditions “get under our skin”? Why and how socioeconomic inequalities translate into biological outcomes thus shaping health inequalities? What are the drivers of population health and what can we do about it? Such questions are analyzed and debated in this online course. The aim of this course is to comprehend theories, methods and evidence regarding the powerful influence of social and economic factors on public health. This introductory-level course aspires that students translate academic contents into public health practice. To that end, students will make readings about the social determinants of health, and will apply its contents to a chosen population to see first-hand how the social determinants affect the health of a chosen population. This assessment could lay the basics for culturally and economically congruent interventions/policies to mitigate health problems.

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register for the CPH 621 section.

CPH 522 / 622 – Communicating Public Health Data

Course CodeCredit

CPH 522 / 622

3

Course Information

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.

 

CPH 526 / 626 – Epidemiology of Aging and Chronic Disease

Course CodeCredit

CPH 526/626

3

Course Information

This course introduces the application of epidemiologic methods to the study of older persons and chronic disease. The course will examine concepts and topics including trends in aging and the health of aging populations; health transition, and explanations and consequences of mortality decline; determinants of health and survival; distinctions between normal aging, disease and disability; health promotion and primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, as applied to older persons; the epidemiology of selected diseases; syndromes and conditions common to older age and chronic illness.

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register for the CPH 626 section.

CPH 527 / 627 – Applied Epidemiology

Course CodeCredit

CPH 527 / 627

3

Course Information

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.

CPH 528 / 628 – Management Practice and Quality Improvement in Health Care and Public Health Organizations

Course CodeCredit

CPH 528 / 628

3

Course Information

Introduction to leadership and management, focusing on effective strategies for creating a productive work environment through techniques like conflict resolution, building collaborative teams, and providing team leadership. Issues of measuring, managing and improving the quality of health care will also be addressed. Current national efforts in performance measures in public health (ie.,county certification) are discussed. Case studies taken from public health departments and other settings will be used to master problem-solving methods.

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register for the CPH 628 section.

CPH 531 / 631 – Social Justice and Public Health

Course CodeCredit

CPH 531/631

3

Course Information

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.

CPH 535 / 635 – Professionalism, Ethics & Systems Thinking in Public Health

Course CodeCredit

CPH 535/635

3

Course Information

This course presents several key theoretical principles and practices of public health. Using a case-based format, the course will examine six competencies of public health Attachment E.2 p. 1 of 3 practice identified by the Academic Council on Linkages including familiarity with the Core Functions and Essential Services of public health; facility in grant-writing; the relationship of the legal and political systems to public health; interpretation of public health data for public use; pitfalls of policy-making; and the ethics of public health practice and study design. In-depth examination of these issues will prepare the student for leadership roles in community and in public health.

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register in the CPH 635 section.

CPH 536 / 636 – Community Based Participatory Research

Course CodeCredit

CPH 536/636

3

Course Information

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.

CPH 538 / 638 – Public Health Program Evaluation

Course CodeCredit

CPH 538/638

3

Course Information

Using case study methodology, this course focuses on the acquisition of technical skills in design, data collection and analysis for the purpose of evaluating public health programs. Program justification and evaluation for policy-making purposes will be emphasized. In addition, alternative forms of evaluation will be examined including rapid assessment, participatory evaluation and historical, social networking and other techniques. Students will have the opportunity to examine public health data sets and to design an evaluation focused on a disparate population as well as develop policy based on critical analysis of several types of evaluations.

Prerequisite

CPH 550 – Program Planning

Slash Listed Courses

Doctoral students register in the CPH 638 section.

CPH 550 / 650 – Program Planning

Course CodeCredit

CPH 550/650

3

Course Information

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.

Interprofessional Education Course Schedule

Interprofessional education occurs when students from two or more professions learn about, from, and with each other to enhance collaboration and improve health outcomes. At least 1 credit of Interprofessional Education is required by all MPH degree programs.

Most courses with OHSU subject code IPE (Inter-Professional Education) or UNI (University Curriculum) satisfy the Interprofessional Education requirement. Other courses may also serve; consult your advisor.

For a list of IPE and UNI courses, descriptions, and their intended schedule download the spreadsheet. This list is subject to change, contact the course instructor if you would like to enroll.

Interprofessional Education