Dartmouth’s 11-Month MPH Program Unveils New Curriculum, More Opportunities for Students to Further Customize Their Studies & be Mentored by Leading Experts

The Dartmouth Institute’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program is rooted in the hallmarks of the Institute’s innovative research that has helped policy makers, systems leaders, and providers improve health and healthcare practices around the world. Beginning in summer 2020, students in the Institute’s 11-month MPH program will have more options to further customize their MPH degree through additional elective courses in the Institute’s core research areas of health policy, quality improvement, and health services research. Students will also have the continued opportunity to work closely with leading experts and faculty mentors in each of these research areas.

“Our students are eager to directly impact policies, improve health systems, and overcome the barriers that stand in the way of improving health and healthcare,” says Executive Director of Education Craig Westling, DrPH. “Over the last 18 months we have been designing a new curriculum to enable students to dive deeply into the core areas we need to focus on to lead change. More importantly, the new curriculum also gives students greater flexibility to specialize in topic areas of interest.”

The new curriculum format measures degree completion in units instead of credits (4 credits equals 1 unit), with students needing to take 12 units to graduate. Core courses such as inferential epidemiology, health economics, biostatistics, and health services administration and leadership are required, and students can choose from over 13 elective courses to complete their degree.

The opportunities for students to put their skills and knowledge immediately to practice abound throughout the new curriculum.

In Community Health: Needs Assessment, Program Design and Evaluation, offered during the second semester, students will design, propose, and analyze community health needs assessments for hospitals and health systems. The work comprises the Applied Practice Experience (APE) requirement that the MPH’s accrediting body, the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH), requires for graduation.  

Coursework related to CEPH’s Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) component are also directly incorporated into courses such as Advance Health Services Research or Advanced Topics in Health Care Improvement (among additional course topics).  

Additionally, students in good academic standing can take the Practicum Intensive, which includes two culminating electives – an independent internship and an independent ILE consisting of scholarly work. In each practicum elective, students work 1:1 with a faculty mentor to produce a high-quality academic product such as a publishable paper, policy white paper, or a grant proposal on a topic of their choice.

“Starting with the Institute’s work in publishing the landmark Dartmouth Atlas reports that document geographic variation in healthcare delivery, The Dartmouth Institute has been a pioneer in health services research, quality improvement, and health policy for over 30 years,” Westling says.

“Our enhanced MPH curriculum strengthens our ability to connect students directly with some of the best health services researchers in the world, and pair them with their classmate peers to develop strategies for improving healthcare delivery and shaping policy.” 

EXPLORE THE NEW ON-CAMPUS MPH CURRICULUM

POSTED 1/22/2020 AT 12:16 PM IN #news #education