Elective and Methods Courses

HSP Concentration Required Courses

• HSERV 512: Health Systems and Policy – Students review and examine selected topics from literature. Includes need and access to care; theory and effects of health insurance; private and public insurance programs; managed care; costs/expenditures; availability and organization of health resources; and quality assessment and improvement.
• HSERV 513: Health Policy Research – Extends students’ understanding of the nature of health policy and health policy development in the context of a market-based economy.
• HSMGMT 514: Health Economics – Uses economic concepts and tools to examine range of issues pertaining to healthcare, delivery of healthcare services. Includes demand analysis, production of health services, expenditure growth, markets for hospital and physician services, externalities. Emphasis on using economics to examine issues and solve problems. Prior economics courses not required.
• HSERV 553: Health Policy Development and Advocacy in the United States – Practice-oriented course designed to enhance knowledge and cultivate skills for U.S. health policy development. Students learn effective policy analysis, research, and communications skills.

SBS Concentration Required Courses

• HSERV 581: Strategies of Health Promotion – Assessment of health promotion planning, implementation, and evaluation strategies for their strengths, weaknesses, and effectiveness. Students critique strategies to modify behavioral factors that influence lifestyles of individuals, including decisions influencing their reciprocal relationship with environmental factors affecting the health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
• HSERV 517: Qualitative Research Methods – Builds on introductory training in qualitative research methods by diving deeper into different frameworks, study designs, sampling approaches, and data collections tools. Covers various data analytic approaches, as well as data visualization, interpretation, writing and presenting qualitative research findings. Students learn to apply these concepts and execute a qualitative research project from start to finish.
• HSERV 522: Health Program Evaluation – Focuses on the use of evaluations within health programs. Discusses how program evaluations utilize research methods to answer questions concerning efficacy, implementation, and drivers of changes in health. It also looks at the reasons for creating program evaluations — the drivers of evaluation, how results can be transformed into action, and the role of equity in formulating and implementing evaluation results.
• HSERV 507: Health Communication and Marketing for Health Promotion: Theory and Practice – Provides an introduction to the field of health communication and social marketing. Focuses on how persuasive communication and marketing are most effectively used to improve population health and reduce inequities. Students develop and present a health communication campaign proposal.