PH 118:

Community Health: Needs Assessment, Program Design, and Evaluation

(1.25 units)

This course develops defining skills in public health: assessing a community’s needs, designing programs to address those needs, and evaluating the effectiveness of those programs. Students will learn the principles of these processes. Working in teams, students will evaluate a non-profit hospital’s Community Health Needs Assessment, the programs the hospital designed in response, and the evaluation process the hospital employs. Students will report the strengths and opportunities for improvement they identify to hospital staff.

The Applied Practice Experience (APE) component is met in this course.

PH 140:

Applying Health Statistics

(1.5 units)

Students will critically appraise studies of analytic epidemiology. After classifying a study’s design and acknowledging its inherent limitations, students will trace what outcome measures (e.g., risks) and effect measures (e.g., risk ratios) were used to describe the problem and assess impact. Students will appraise the choice of these numbers, how the authors explained them, and whether their conclusions were justified. Weekly laboratory sessions allow students to conduct their own analyses with Stata® on real-world datasets.

PH 125:

Introduction to Qualitative Methods for Public Health & Healthcare Studies

(0.50 unit)

This course introduces students to qualitative design and methods in public health and health care as a stand-alone approach and in combination with quantitative approaches (mixed methods) for research, evaluation, and needs assessment. Topics include an overview of qualitative traditions, distinguishing between qualitative and quantitative approaches, when to use qualitative or mixed methods designs, how to design a qualitative study including quality standards, common qualitative methods, data collection, qualitative analysis, and presenting results.

PH 112:

Medical Care and the Corporation (elective)

(1.0 unit)

This course examines the critical issues facing business leaders as they approach and finance health benefits for employees, manage cost, and choose the best strategy for recruiting and retaining a productive workforce. Students will build an understanding of the structure, economics and dynamics of the employer based health care system from the perspective of corporate leaders, learn how the ACA has fundamentally changed the strategic landscape and comprehend alternative approaches to help businesses cope with these strategic issues.

This course is cross-listed with Tuck School of Business in their MBA program.

PH 130:

Practical Approaches for Today's Health Care Ethics Challenges (elective)

(0.50 unit)

This highly interactive, inter-professional elective emphasizes critical thinking, real-world application, and decision-making to clinical, research, public health, and organizational ethics issues. Students will build practical ethical reasoning skills by applying ethics principles through case study discussions regarding challenges faced by today’s health care professionals. Students will learn to use a systematic ethical analysis process to recognize, respond to, and prevent ethical conflicts to foster an ethically aligned organization.

PH 100:

Inferential Methods in Epidemiology and Public Health

(1.0 unit)

Students will learn to recognize the purpose, structure, strengths and weaknesses of common study designs: randomized controlled trials and observational studies (cohort and case-control). Weekly journal clubs establish a critical assessment framework to determine the relevance and validity of published studies. Students apply this knowledge through collaboratively writing a systematic review proposal, which includes developing a research question, conducting a preliminary literature search, and considering appropriate inclusion/exclusion criteria.

PH 120:

Health Coproduction (elective)

(0.50 unit)

Coproduction has been defined as the interdependent work of users and professionals to design, create, develop, deliver, assess and improve the health of individuals and populations, through mutual respect and partnership, that invites participants’ strengths and expertise. At the core, coproduction relies on shared decision making, and to operationalize the approach, a learning health system approach is advocated.

PH 146:

Voices from the HIV Pandemic

(0.50 Unit)

This first interdisciplinary non-clinical elective for MPH, MS, and MD students at Geisel will focus on the > 43-year history of the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic. Voices will be from 10 guest speakers with insights across a wide spectrum of perspectives and experiences, nationally and internationally. The course will begin with 1981, before the term “AIDS” was first used (1982) and before HIV was discovered (1983), but long after the HIV-1 virus “discovered” us (pre-1959 and the first laboratory-confirmed patient). Most of the 10 guest speakers have trained, taught, or worked at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, or Dartmouth College. Most have helped fight the pandemic across the USA e.g., NYC, Newark, San Francisco, Boston, San Antonio. Washington DC, Atlanta (CDC), Bethesda (NIH), Hanover, Lebanon, the C. Everett Koop Institute, and elsewhere. Some speakers have also helped fight the pandemic in other nations e.g., Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Uganda, Thailand and beyond including through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

PH 186:

Intro to R (elective)

(0.25 Unit)

This course will introduce students to R Studio and will teach them how to properly format code in R Markdown files to produce clear, reproducible analyses. In order to perform these analyses, students will be asked to translate the coding skills they have learned in Stata for basic statistical tests (for example, T-test, chi-squared tests) and apply these to programming in R. Additionally, students will be taught to use the Help Menu and online resources to find code and troubleshoot errors.

PH 177:

MPH and MS Capstone Course Series 1

(2.0 units)

The overarching goal of these courses, a series of three capstone seminars taught during the academic year, is to guide and support students throughout the completion of an academically robust, high quality culminating Capstone Project.  Each week the class will meet briefly as a single group, followed by smaller group meetings to address the process and content of specific projects.

Fall, Winter, Spring terms; 2 credits each term (HP, P, LP, NC)
Prerequisites: None

PH 105:

The Patient Revolution: Capturing the Patient Voice in Healthcare Policy and Research (seminar elective)

(0.25 unit)

This seminar will interweave the need for a Patient Revolution in healthcare, and strategies to achieve it. Sessions will begin with a discussion of patient stories from ‘Why We Revolt – a patient revolution for careful and kind care’ by Victor Montori (book provided). Students will learn practical strategies and tools by which we can create change including: 1) how to engage patients and other stakeholders in health system design and research, 2) the importance of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs), giving patients a voice in healthcare policy and research, and 3) how to critically appraise patient engagement and PROM quality.

PH 106:

Policy for Clinicians: Influencing Formulation to Lead in Implementation (seminar elective)

(0.25 unit)

Drawing upon lessons from implementation of reform policy in the US (ACA, 2010) and UK (HSCA, 2012), this seminar will prepare students with clinical backgrounds or interests to influence policy formulation. Students will critique five design principles for reform at the frontlines of care and identify capabilities needed for system-wide implementation of policy reforms that improve health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations. Their application and synthesis of these principles and capabilities will serve as a framework for consolidating and expanding TDI learnings while acquiring the skills that will equip them to lead in health policy as well as clinical practice.

PH 108:

Recording clinical encounters: what are the implications and the potential benefits? (seminar elective)

(0.25 unit)

People are recording their visits to health professionals: sometimes they ask permission, sometimes they do not. These four seminars will examine the emotions generated, the arguments for and against, and the fast-moving technological developments that will take advantage of digital recordings of clinical encounters.

PH 104:

Strategies to Pursue Personal Health and Create a Culture of Wellbeing (seminar elective)

(0.50 unit)

This seminar aims to advance health professionals capacity to model evidence-based wellbeing strategies and to collaborate with colleagues in leading change and creating cultures of wellness. We will examine wellbeing through individual and population-based lens, explore current and complex health challenges and apply evidence-based solutions to foster personal and community wellbeing. Students will participate in case-based readings, self-reflection, in-depth discussion and application of evidence-based wellbeing strategies, tools and skills. The course is grounded in an experiential learning approach and draws on principles of prevention, personal health practices, and processes of improvement.

PH 133:

WHO: Declaring Public Health Emergencies: Flu to Monkeypox

(0.25 unit)

The World Health Organization (WHO) follows policies established in the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005) to declare an epidemic a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)”. We will analyze these policies and criteria in general terms and then in the specific terms when a PHEIC has been declared. Between 2009 and 2022, WHO has declared a PHEIC seven times: for Pandemic Influenza (2009), Polio (2014), Ebola (2014), Zika Neurological syndromes (2016), Ebola (2019), COVID-19 (2020), and monkeypox (2022). Only the WHO Director-General (DG) can convene the IHR-mandated Emergency Committee of outside experts to advise her/him whether or not to declare an epidemic a PHEIC. Also, only the WHO DG can make the decision whether or not to declare a PHEIC regardless of the advice of this Expert Committee. If a PHEIC is declared then the WHO must declare what specific “temporary recommendations” (valid for 3 months) must be made, and then reviewed every three months. We will also discuss how declaring a PHEIC, or not, could be improved by WHO i.e., “What’s Next?”

PH 135:

Exploration of Race, Anti-Black Racism and Public Health

(0.25 unit)

Following the summer of 2020, a number of local municipalities in the U.S. declared ‘racism is a public health crisis’. In order to grapple with the impact of racism on the health of individuals, we must first understand the concept of race and the enduring impact on specific groups. This course will examine the history of racial concepts that continue to permeate U.S. society since its founding. We will explore the social construction of race and racism – including a review of anti-black racism.

PH 143:

Climate and Health (elective)

(0.25 unit)

This course will take an interdisciplinary approach to examine the connections between human health, ecosystems, and climate change. Students will be equipped with the knowledge and tools to become effective advocates to reduce climate impacts on health at the individual, population, and global levels. After reviewing the foundations of climate science, the course will explore the environmental conditions, hazards, and health outcomes associated with climate change. Issues of health equity, the impact of climate on vulnerable populations, and climate justice will be addressed. Teaching tools include lectures, team-based learning, audiovisual media, case studies, guest experts, and assigned readings/exercises. Summative assignments will provide students the opportunity to propose approaches to climate-informed health care and public health policy.

PH 149:

Health Equity Communication

(0.25 Unit)

Public health messaging is often ineffective, leading to problems of miscommunication, misinformation, dehumanization, insensitivity, and dissatisfaction. However, a growing body of empirical evidence demonstrates that strategic communication to promote wellness and reduce risk has produced direct positive outcomes in the adoption of healthy behaviors in diverse populations. These health campaigns employ persuasion and other communication theories that focus on behavioral intention and message design. They often reflect a sociocultural perspective that recognizes the role social dynamics such as wealth, poverty, prejudice, access to health services, and living conditions play in the message reception of a group. This course provides students with the opportunity to learn about the key components of health promotion messages and steps involved in creating effective and equitable health communication campaigns.

PH 186:

Intro to R (elective)

(0.25 Unit)

This course will introduce students to R Studio and will teach them how to properly format code in R Markdown files to produce clear, reproducible analyses. In order to perform these analyses, students will be asked to translate the coding skills they have learned in Stata for basic statistical tests (for example, T-test, chi-squared tests) and apply these to programming in R. Additionally, students will be taught to use the Help Menu and online resources to find code and troubleshoot errors.

PH 102:

Systematic Review (elective)

(1.0 unit)

Sample text here for class description

PH 115:

Leading Change in Value-Based Public Health and Healthcare

(1.0 unit)

A core aim of The Dartmouth Institute is to measurably improve health. In this course, students will develop skills to define and lead important improvement initiatives: design thinking, finance for non-finance professionals, persuasion and leadership. Students will learn strategy, budgeting, resource allocation and financial decision making as needed to build a “business case.” The course weaves in negotiation, persuasion, and team interaction to develop valuable leadership skills. Students will hear from important leaders from finance, issue advocacy, and public health. Each student will define a real-world project inspired through design thinking with the intent of implementing it in a community; over eight weeks each student will construct a persuasion case that includes the “business case” and conclude the process by pitching to a community leader.

PH 141:

From Observational Data to Valid Inference: Regression and Other Approaches (elective)

(1.5 units)

In the quest to understand and improve population health and healthcare, observation is essential – and yet when we observe the world, the true nature of cause, effect, and association can be obscured. To see beyond influences that disguise the truth, investigators need expertise and ingenuity – to use multivariable statistics, and understand when their use is indicated, and adequate, to address a question. In PH 141, students will gain proficiency – in study design and analysis, interpretation and communication – to capably address threats to inferential validity in epidemiologic and other observational data, and apply these capabilities to questions about health, disease, and healthcare.

PH 151:

Environmental Health Sciences and Policy (elective)

(0.50 unit)

In this course students explore major environmental and occupational health issues by applying basic tools of environmental science including epidemiologic methods, toxicology and risk assessment. Students examine the relationship between environmental and occupational exposures and human disease, emphasizing the interface of science and policy, the role of regulatory agencies and environmental risk communication. Topics include air and water quality, hazardous waste, radiation, heavy metals, food safety, environmental pathogens, and clinical occupational medicine. Teaching tools include lectures, audiovisual media, case studies, guest experts, and assigned readings/exercises.

PH 131:

Patient Centered Health Communication (elective)

(0.50 unit)

Health care decisions are complicated – really complicated – and frequently lack evidence to determine a ‘one best’ course of treatment. As such, patient‐centered health communications increasingly are recognized as a critical means to facilitate health care decisions that provide patients with “the care they need, and no less; and the care they want and no more” (Al Mulley, The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science). Shared decision making is on strategy to promote better communication with patients and has been described as “the pinnacle” of patient centered care (Barry, Mass General Hospital)

The objectives of this course are to 1) engage you to think broadly about the impact of communication at the patient, institutional, and population level, with a focus on shared decision making; 2) to gain skills and experience related to the design and development of decision support tools and methods; 3) to understand the challenges involved in implementing decision support into practice at the clinical and policy level.

PH 161:

Independent Internship 1 (elective)

(0.25 unit)

Part 1 of the Independent Internship. The public health field internship provides students with an opportunity to apply principles and skills learned in the classroom - the measurement, organization, and improvement of population health - to real situations in the field. The placement site can be an agency or organization in any sector – government, non-profit, or for-profit – but any university-affiliated settings must be focused primarily on community engagement, typically with external partners. Students will be provided a selection of TDI-sourced Internship offerings but students may also opt to identify a self-sourced internship site. The project should be scoped such that a minimum of 120 hours will be spent at the placement site. Activities of the internship should be mutually beneficial to both the site and the student, with the student specifying five learning objectives for their learning experience. Students will spend the Winter term contacting internship sites and applying for an internship position. By the end of the term each student will be matched and have developed a mutually agreed upon contract with their Internship Site preceptor that will require approval from the course directors before the start of the Spring term. Typically, the internship series occurs in the winter and spring terms of the year, but other arrangements are possible with permission of the course director(s).

PH 177-179:

Independent ILE

(1.50 units)

This requirement can be met in the designated spring courses, or completed or completed as an independent learning experience.

PH 117:

Intro to Quality Improvement in Health Systems

(1.0 unit)

This course develops systems thinking in health care and public health. Students explore various perspectives on healthcare services, including coproduction of health and health care, connections between communities and health systems, and making change in complex system. Students will learn and apply basic improvement skills and will be exposed to a variety of approaches and examples. Implications of health care systems on social inequities and structural bias are a central focus.

PH 111:

Medical Care Epidemiology

(1.0 unit)

Almost a half century after John Wennberg’s seminal Science paper, the field of medical care epidemiology and the investigation of health care variation continues to inform public policy and identify opportunities for health system improvement. This ten-week course highlights the theories, methods, findings, and associated remedies, which are contrasted with the more familiar field of classical epidemiology (i.e., patterns of health and disease). This course requires a high level of student engagement during class. Course talks are pre-recorded and are viewed along with assigned readings prior to classes. Class time is primarily reserved for structured discussion of the course content in small groups and with the whole class; a portion of class time is also set aside for student questions. Specific assignments are: reading/video quizzes, pre-class worksheets requiring short answers and essays, and a final paper. Class engagement and participation is mandatory and self-evaluated by each student.

PH 137:

Global Health Equity and One Health

(1.0 unit)

Equity should be the guiding principle in working with historically vulnerable communities no matter the region or country. Students will examine the history of global health and its roots in colonial and tropical medicine that prioritized the health and wellbeing of the colonizers while exploiting the Indigenous populations. This course will look at how global health has been conducted in the past, how it is practiced today, and a collective vision for global health practice in the future. Understanding and appreciating a variety of perspectives and defending the viewpoints of those with lived experience from historically vulnerable communities is a key lesson of the course. Students will be asked to expand their views to a global perspective that considers cultures and ways of working different from their own, while being conscious of the origins of their own views. The course will also ask students to think carefully about partnerships between agencies, governments, and a variety of sectors working together, and across regions of the world (e.g. global south and north), and the impact of western colonialism. Students will learn to design, monitor, and evaluate global health programs and projects in partnership with communities and other stakeholders, identifying and adopting interventions that the community embraces and prioritizes. At the heart of the course will be ethical approaches. We will examine the sharing of information, misinformation, and disinformation. Students will be encouraged to consider climate, migration, epidemics pandemics, pan-epidemics, planetary health, and humanitarian and natural disasters. The course will introduce a number of tools, structures, operational frameworks, ways of working, engines for change and advocacy, UN agencies and other actors, networks/systems, that lead action in Global Health and One Health. One Health is the triad of human, animal, and environmental health. It is a pillar that is now integrated into work by the World Health Organization, US CDC, US NIH, USAID, US White House, many governments, ministries of health, centers of disease control in other nations and regions (e.g., African CDC), and a host of NGOs working worldwide. Equity is also a key principle in One Health (e.g. COVID, HIV, H5N1). In 2022 four United Nations organizations formed the Quadripartite Collaborative for One Health: These four are the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization of Animal Health (WOAH), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and the UN Environment Programme. (UNEP). The course will introduce students to experts and professionals working across a spectrum of global health areas and specialties. This will include experience from the past 10 years of Dartmouth’s Center for Global Health Equity under the leadership of Dr. Lisa Adams. Students will be asked to consider the impact of their work beyond the health sector such as community autonomy, local leadership, political contexts, media, economics, and foreign relations (China, US, etc.).

PH 178:

MPH and MS Capstone Course Series 2

(2.0 units)

The overarching goal of these courses, a series of three capstone seminars taught during the academic year, is to guide and support students throughout the completion of an academically robust, high quality culminating Capstone Project.  Each week the class will meet briefly as a single group, followed by smaller group meetings to address the process and content of specific projects.

Fall, Winter, Spring terms; 2 credits each term (HP, P, LP, NC)
Prerequisites: None

PH 147:

Advanced Health Services Research (elective)

(1.5 units)

This course will develop student analytic competencies to the level necessary to conceptualize, plan, carry out, and effectively communicate small research projects in health services or epidemiology. Lectures, demonstrations, and labs will be used to integrate and extend methods introduced in other QBS and TDI courses. The students will leverage synthetic electronic health record data provided by the Analytics Institute at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and publicly available data in classroom lab exercises and course assignments. Many of the labs build on one another, and the aim is that the skills developed in the labs will assist the students with their own student-led projects. The instructors will mentor students as they develop their own analytic projects. Practical skill areas include programming in R, developing an analytic workflow, data visualization, and data structure and management. The main goal of the course is to firmly ground students in the scientific process of observational research.

The Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) component can be met in this course.

PH 119 & PH 121:

Decision and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (elective) 

(1.5 units (PH 119); 1.0 unit (PH 121) )

This course covers the fundamental principles and mechanics of decision analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis. Topics covered in the course include basics of probability (including Bayes’ Theorem), structuring decision problems as decision trees and Markov models, components of preference (value preference, time preference, and risk preference), valuing multidimensional outcomes, evaluating decision trees, sensitivity analysis, value of information, and basic principles of cost-effectiveness analysis. Weekly problem sets are also used to reinforce the concepts presented in class. The course has a weekly lab that involves use of decision analysis software to reinforce concepts presented in class. Labs are also used for development, progress review and discussion of small group decision analysis projects, which culminate in formal presentations the last week of class.

The Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) component can be met in this course.

PH 116:

Maternal Health Equity

(1.5 units)

Maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality outcomes are vital measures of population health and there are vast inequities in these outcomes across national and sub-national comparisons around the world. Understanding the historical and present-day contexts in which these inequities develop(ed) and how health systems respond(ed) is critical for improving population and individual health and eliminating these inequities in the long term. This course is designed to build knowledge and analytical skills in the following three areas: 1) conceptual basis for the determinants of maternal and newborn health, 2) key public health and clinical interventions designed to reduce inequities in outcomes, and 3) comparative analysis of relevant measures of inequities in these outcomes. The course will focus on both inequities in the U.S. and in low and middle-income countries to provide a global perspective on these inequities and to explore solutions across and within populations.

PH 113 & PH 123:

Health Policy (elective)

(1.5 units (PH 113); 1.0 unit (PH 123) )

The course begins with an investigation into how health policy is shaped by legislation, regulations and the courts. After understanding the process, each student chooses a policy topic they care about and begins to build a persuasive advocacy strategy for making the change they want to see happen. The course then delves deeply into theories of change and effective communication and negotiation with stakeholders. Each course assignment is a piece of the final project, which is a written policy advocacy strategy that includes: an analysis of a policy issue, a summary of relevant research, a stakeholder analysis, an advocacy campaign plan, a metrics-based evaluation plan, and prepared written and oral communication points that target different audiences.

The Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) component can be met in this course.

PH 114:

Contemporary Issues in Biotechnology: The Practitioner’s Perspective (elective)

(0.50 unit)

In this course, students will gain an appreciation for the biotechnology industry, its premise and continued promise, as well as what is required for biotechnology entrepreneurs in the 21st century to attract investment capital. Areas ripe for investment and development will be explored, as will lessons that have been learned over the past four decades that have been witness to the creation of thousands of biotechnology companies, and the very way that innovation is supported by the pharmaceutical industry and regulated by worldwide governments.

PH 122:

Survey Methods (elective)

(1.0 unit)

This course introduces the basic skills needed to conduct and present survey research. It will focus on two aspects of such research: designing and administering a survey (primary data collection); and accessing, analyzing and reporting on data from publicly available national survey data (secondary data analysis). Topics covered will include survey design, sampling, validity, reliability, data collection, analysis, interpretation and reporting of results. To reinforce practical skills, the course will include weekly computer labs, research in progress sessions to critique draft survey instruments, and a journal club to critically read articles reporting survey results.

PH 179:

MPH and MS Capstone Course Series 3

(2.0 units)

The overarching goal of these courses, a series of three capstone seminars taught during the academic year, is to guide and support students throughout the completion of an academically robust, high quality culminating Capstone Project.  Each week the class will meet briefly as a single group, followed by smaller group meetings to address the process and content of specific projects.

Fall, Winter, Spring terms; 2 credits each term (HP, P, LP, NC)
Prerequisites: None

PH 162:

Independent Internship 2

(0.75 Unit)

Part 2 of the independent internship. At the end of PH161 all students continuing into PH162 will have been matched to an Internship site, either sourced by TDI or by the student independently. The placement site can be an agency or organization in any sector – government, non-profit, or for-profit –. A minimum of 120 hours is to be spent at the placement site. Activities of the internship should be mutually beneficial to both the site and the student, with the student specifying learning objectives for their learning experience. After completing the internship, each student prepares and presents their completed work and a summary of their experience to their site. At the conclusion, students complete an exit appraisal of their experience and achievements.