The MPH Global Health Track is designed for students interested in acquiring the competencies necessary to bring practical solutions to the health problems of underserved and neglected populations in resource poor settings worldwide. Many of the greatest challenges in public health are global. Experts in global health and individuals with a sense of responsibility towards populations lacking adequate access to health care are needed to help solve the many health problems these populations face. The MPH Global Health Specialty Track fosters the acquisition of the competencies necessary to bring positive, lasting change to challenged populations around the world.

The Global Health Specialty Track includes both didactic and practical experience designed to allow students to accomplish the competencies determined necessary to be global health practitioners. Classes feature many world-renowned lecturers from the fields of medicine, public health, social sciences, health economics and health management, as well as experts from NGOs and government policy makers. The courses are designed to give students a thorough understanding of the principles of public health, with special emphasis on globalization and human rights, and the arguments surrounding the interrelation of these fields of study.

In addition to the core course work an MPH with a global health emphasis includes coursework that covers a wide variety of topics such as equitable distribution of life-saving drugs, the health impact of asylum seekers, global communicable diseases, global trade, humanitarian aid and the public health impact of military intervention. Students acquire practical skills that enable them to work successfully in a wide variety of settings with diverse populations both domestically and abroad. With constant interaction between students and instructors, discussion and debate are important features of this course of study. Students are encouraged to pursue locations and study topics that are of particular interest to them.

Examples of projects undertaken in this track over the past few years include: working to improve the health of residents in India through child health nutrition programs and community education; examining the role of alternative and complementary medicine in villagers in rural outpatient settings in India; designing and teaching a basic public health curriculum in a local college in the Spirit Lake Nation of the Native American Dakota Tribe; performing targeted needs assessments in rural Kenya through collaboration with the International Rescue Committee which serves refugees affected by violent conflict.

1. Explain the global context in which public health problems occur including the social, political, or economic forces that underlay them.

2. Apply social justice or human rights principles in the assessment of public health programs, interventions or policies.

3. Describe the roles or relationships of the entities that influence global health.

4. Identify the leadership or management skills needed to effectively participate or lead local, national, or global reproductive and maternal rights organizations.

5. Describe multi-agency policy-making in response to complex health emergencies.

Global Health Track Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

In addition to the General Public Health Track, which gives students a solid foundation in the five core areas of public health (biostatistics, epidemiology, environmental health, health policy & management, and socio-behavioral health) the Graduate Program in Public Health provides students with an opportunity to specialize in a specific public health concentration. Students are required to take the courses listed for the Specialty Track they choose to pursue. The credits accrued from required courses vary for each Specialty Track. In total, students must complete 45 credits to be eligible to earn the Master of Public Health.

The Specialty Tracks are:

• General Public Health

• Health Promotion & Disease Prevention

• Environmental Health Sciences

• Global Health

• Outcomes Research

• Biostatistics

• Health Care Management

• Epidemiology

MPH Requirements for all Specialty Tracks

*Students in the Global Health Track must take MPH 0700 Introduction to Global Health

**This course is required for most Tracks

***Tracks have specific seminar courses that vary between 1-2 credits

Specialization is not required and students are free to pursue a general program of study consisting of an amalgamation of courses across all specialty tracks. General Track students, however, must still complete a set of required courses from each of the five areas of basic public health knowledge: biostatistics, epidemiology, environmental health sciences, health services administration, and social/behavioral sciences.

1. Assess the health status of populations, to identify determinants of health or illness, or to ascertain factors influencing the use of health services.

2. Develop disease control or prevention programs in conjunction with the community.

3. Specify approaches for assessing, preventing, or controlling environmental and occupational hazards that pose risks to human health and safety.

4. Design, implement or evaluate public health programs and policies within a socio-ecological framework.

5. Assess how population health is influenced by the role by human right concerns and ethical dilemmas.

General Public Health Track Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

The Biostatistics Track provides students the necessary statistical reasoning and methodology skills to effectively design, assess, and analyze studies of the effectiveness and safety of therapeutic interventions, the characteristics and distribution of diseases in populations, health services research, and programs of health care delivery.

The Biostatistics Track builds on the core curriculum in the MPH program to offer students a practical foundation in biostatistics through courses in important areas such as statistical inference, probability, multivariable models, analysis of longitudinal and time to event (or survival) data, genetics, and statistical computing. This foundation is meant to be a springboard to launching a successful career in clinical research, for both clinical researchers seeking quantitative skills and those seeking careers as biostatisticians.

1. Apply the necessary quantitative, logical, or computational skills to successfully conduct clinical research.

2. Translate clinical questions into statistical hypotheses.

3. Construct and manage datasets for cross-sectional and longitudinal studies using statistical software.

4. Develop analytical strategies that take account of the specific qualities of data to be analyzed, sources of variation, or assumptions required.

5. Effectively communicate complicated statistical concepts and results to clinical colleagues or community partners.

Biostatistics Track Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

The MPH Outcomes Research Specialty Track gives students the necessary tools to contribute to the body of knowledge that determines how health care practices and interventions affect end results. End results include effects that people experience and care about, such as change in the ability to function. In particular, for individuals with chronic conditions—where cure is not always possible—end results include quality of life as well as mortality. By linking the care people get to the outcomes they experience, outcomes research has become the key to developing better ways to monitor and improve the quality of care.

Time and again, studies have shown that medical practices as commonplace as hysterectomy and hernia repair were performed much more frequently in some areas than in others, even when there were no differences in the underlying rates of disease. Furthermore, there was often no information about the end results for the patients who received a particular procedure, and few comparative studies to show which interventions were most effective. These findings challenged researchers, clinicians, and health systems leaders to develop new tools to assess the impact of health care services. The Outcomes Research Specialty Track gives students the competencies necessary to develop new evidence about benefits, risks, and results of treatments so that patients, physicians, public health practitioners and policy makers can make more informed decisions.

Examples of projects undertaken in this track over the past few years include: evaluating role of persistent depression in adherence to secondary prevention behaviors after acute coronary syndromes; evaluating differences in preventive services offered by gynecologists and generalists; food allergy as a risk factor for asthma morbidity in adults; determining factors associated with adherence to influenza vaccine among inner city adults with persistent asthma; association between minor and major surgical complications after carotid endarterectomy.

1. Analyze major clinical or public health problems or relevant clinical epidemiology, outcomes or health services research questions.

2. Critique the state of knowledge regarding clinical epidemiology, outcomes, health services research questions, or public health policy.

3. Explain the relative advantages or disadvantages of observational or experimental methods used in health services research.

4. Specify the process for outcome detection and their implications for improving health outcomes in health care research.

5. Understand and identify ethical issues related to OMICS research.

Outcomes Research Track Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

The Health Care Management Specialty Track prepares graduates for positions of leadership and management in public health, health, government and community service organizations.

Students will learn competencies in strategic, ethical and accountable management practices, in state of the art human resource management and supervision, in the techniques of finance and budgeting, the use of quantitative tools for management accountability and for managing cost effective health care and they will learn to design, implement and evaluate programs and projects.

The Health Care Management specialty track curriculum provides competency-based learning in organizational development and organization behavior, including theory and application, team leadership, relationship building, collaboration and community orientation, social marketing, public relations and communication and information systems management and assessment.

1. Apply theories of organizational analysis, organizational behavior, or financial analysis to leading health organizations.

2. Design, implement, or manage cost-effective health projects.

3. Develop skills in team management, collaboration, or leadership to effect change at multiple levels.

4. Identify various health care payment methodologies for diverse at-risk populations.

5. Develop community partnerships within the context of sustainable service provision and evaluation.

Health Care Management Track Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

The Environmental Health Sciences Specialty Track focuses on environmental exposures that affect human health that arise from air, water, food, work, and the built environment that affect the health of individuals and communities. This track also explores global environmental issues like climate change, and highlight emerging pollutants of concern and cutting-edge research on chemical exposures and fetal origins of adult diseases. Throughout the coursework and practical experiences, students will learn applicable principles of toxicology, environmental epidemiology, exposure and risk assessment, and strategies to prevent disease, as well as fundamentals of laws and regulation that address environmental and occupational hazards. Students also learn to recognize, address, and prevent common environmental and occupational health threats such as heavy metals, asthma triggers, pesticides, and solvents.

The Environmental Health Sciences Track is interdisciplinary and considers the broader context of environmental exposures and their contribution to health disparities on a local, national, and global scale. Students will gain a core skill set that will prepare them to become leaders in this important and growing field of public health.

1. Assess environmental or occupational exposures.

2. Identify the adverse effects of chemical, biological, or physical exposures on human health.

3. Design or interpret epidemiologic research related to toxic hazard.

4. Synthesize relevant information in order to assess or manage environmental or occupational risks.

5. Engage in public health messaging or risk communication activities with a focus on the environmental health

Environmental Health Sciences Track Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

The epidemiology track provides students with the skills necessary to analyze public health trends, design and implement studies, and interpret the results for policy and program development. They also learn to investigate disease origins, and prevention and intervention strategies at the individual and societal levels. The program prepares graduates to take on leadership roles in clinical and population- based health research in government, health care institutions, and private industry.

In addition to the MPH-required coursework in health policy and management, socio-behavioral health, and occupational and environmental health, students take epidemiology track-specific coursework in epidemiology, biostatistics, and clinical outcomes research. Students are required to take two elective classes in specialized areas of epidemiology. Electives are available in infectious disease, chronic disease, molecular, genetic, and environmental and occupational epidemiology.

1. Develop capacity to complete in-depth epidemiological analyses using statistical software.

2. Critically synthesize the public health research or practice literature for a selected health topic.

3. Distinguish between a statistical association and a causal relationship using appropriate principles of causal inference.

4. Identify circumstances under which non-randomized (observational) designs are the best approach to addressing important health-related knowledge gaps.

5. Use tabular or graphical methods to explain model results.

Epidemiology Track Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

General Public Health Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

Global Health Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

Outcomes Research Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options

The Health Promotion & Disease Prevention track builds on the long and rich tradition of Mount Sinai’s collaboration with the East Harlem community in the promotion of health and the prevention of disease. Students who pursue the Heath Promotion & Disease Prevention Specialty Track will learn how to improve the public’s health by working with individuals and their communities. This track emphasizes community level interventions through a curriculum developed to reflect the World Health Organization’s 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion: “Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.” Students in this track achieve the competencies necessary to assist communities in effective action in setting priorities, making decisions, planning strategies and implementing them to achieve better health. At the heart of this process is the empowerment of communities, their ownership and control of their own endeavors and destinies.

Additionally, this track looks at individual behavior as a major determinant of health and helps students develop into public health practitioners capable of influencing social norms that provide a framework for health promotion and disease prevention across life stages. Students in this track learn how to collaborate with agencies, institutions and community-based organizations that influence the social determinants of health to foster the development and implementation of policy and environmental strategies that enable healthy individual behaviors. Topics addressed include nutrition and physical activity, chronic disease prevention and control, health literacy, health communications, injury control and prevention, aging/health and disabilities, men's health and women's health, as well as children’s health. Particular emphasis is placed on the elimination of disparities in health outcomes.

Examples of projects undertaken in this track over the past few years include: working on accurately recording all pediatric vaccinations given in New York City through collaboration with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; creating educational tools and evaluating effectiveness of those tools in a population of HIV/hepatitis C infected substance abusers; working to establish an Arab-American clinic at Mount Sinai; developing an obesity education program for the East Harlem community.

1. Apply behavioral or social science theory in the development, implementation, or evaluation of health promotion interventions.

2. Effect programmatic change at individual, community, or policy level.

3. Synthesize surveillance data to identify sources of health disparities.

4. Describe the health, legal, social or political implications of policy alternatives.

5. Examine the psychosocial and environmental causes of health disparities in the implementation, or evaluation of health promotion or intervention programs.

Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Track Requirements and Electives

*Elective Options