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MPH Degree Course Requirements

There are 6 required core and breadth courses for all students earning an MPH degree. These courses, taken primarily in the first year of the program, provide students with a foundation in the concepts and competencies relevant to addressing determinants of health, using both qualitative and data-driven approaches.

  • PHW200G: Health and Social Behavior (3 units)
  • PHW200F: Intro to Environmental Health Science (3 units)
  • PHW200E: Health Policy and Management (3 units)
  • PHW142: Introduction to Probability and Statistics (4 units)
  • PHW250: Epidemiologic Methods (3 units)
  • PHW289: Interdisciplinary Seminar (3 units)

Health Policy and Management Course Requirements

  • PHW223: Strategic Management & the Health Sector (3 units, Summer 2)
  • PHW224: Organizational Behavior & Management in Healthcare (3 units, Fall 1)
  • PHW227A: Healthcare Finance (3 units, Spring 2)

Eligibility and Requirements

Students must:

  • Be currently enrolled in a UC Berkeley graduate program
  • In good academic standing: GPA of 3.0 or better
  • The three courses (totaling 9 units) must be taken for a letter grade
  • No course substitutions; all three required courses must be completed

Certificate Completion

There is currently no application requirement for the Graduate Certificate in Health Management. However, there is a completion form. Fill out the Certificate Completion Form within 2 weeks of the start of your final course or your final semester if all the courses are completed.

Completion of the Graduate Certificate in Health Management will be noted on the memorandum section of your official transcript (not the diploma). Final grades will be verified prior to award of the certificate.

For more information please direct questions about the certificate or its courses to Kristine Doss, HPM Program Manager, hpm_mph@berkeley.edu.

  • PHW226A: Health Economics (3 units, Fall 2) or
  • PHW226C: Economics of Population Health (3 units, Spring 1)
  • PHW220M: Health Policy Methods (3 units Summer 2 or Fall 2) or
  • PHW222A: Biomedical Innovation Policy (3 units, Spring 1)

Course Planning

To complete the 42 units required for the MPH degree, students in the HPM concentration select 3 elective courses with the option to take 3 electives of interest or complete one of our study focus areas described below. If you don’t see your interest area here, reach out for advising. We will work with you to tailor your program. A full list of courses can be found in our course catalog.

Health Policy and Management Sample Schedules
Course Planning
Advising Meetings
  • Darshani Johnson, Program Manager, is available to meet with students to plan out their course maps.  Feel free to book a 1:1 Zoom meeting with her here to review your course plan.
Completion of Course Requirements
  • OOMPH staff and advisors are here to help students every step of the way during their program.  Program Managers assess student progress toward degree requirements by running reports and communicating with students as needed. That said, it is ultimately up to each student to ensure that they are enrolling in and satisfactorily completing their required courses.  Students should reach out to their Program Manager with any questions related to degree requirements.

Elective Options

To complete the 42 units required for the MPH degree, students in the HPM concentration select 3 elective courses with the option to take 3 electives of interest or complete one of our study focus areas described below. If you don’t see your interest area here, reach out for advising. We will work with you to tailor your program. A full list of courses can be found in our course catalog.

Interested in drug safety, market access, and the cost of prescription drugs?

Regulatory Science concerns the development and use of tools, standards, and approaches to more efficiently develop products and to more effectively evaluate produce safety, efficacy, and quality with the overarching objective of improving global health. With the increasing role of regulatory agencies as knowledge stewards and brokers (data sets), comes the expansion of the regulatory mission, from solely protection, to the protection and promotion of the health of the public.

  • PHW209: Comparative Health Systems (3 units)
  • PHW236A: Regulatory Science, Drug Discovery and Public Health (3 units)
  • PHW226F: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (1 unit)

Interested in infectious disease control in healthcare settings?

The intersection of Epidemiology and Infectious Disease involves the study of factors that determine the distribution of health and disease in human populations. The infectious disease curriculum is designed to emphasize the biology and molecular biology of host-pathogen interactions.

  • PHW251: R for Public Health (2 units)
  • PH271K: Introduction to Data Management and Programming in SAS for Public Health (2 units)
  • PHW250B: Epidemiologic Methods II (4 units)
  • PH252C: Interventional Trial Design (4 units)
  • PHW241: Intermediate Biostatistics for Public Health (4 units)
  • PHW253: Outbreak Investigations (3 units)
  • PHW257: Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response (3 units)
  • PHW236A: Regulatory Science, Drug Development, and Public Health (3 units)
  • PHW260: Infectious Diseases (3 units)

Interested in public health programs to improve healthcare outcomes?

Community Health Sciences offers a combined study of populations, including historically marginalized groups, to include ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status, drawing upon epidemiological, anthropological, and demographic research. This track encompasses the use of program planning tools, behavioral determinants of population health, exposure to evaluation methods, and real-world practice with survey methods in addressing population needs.

  • PHW205: Program Planning (3 units, Summer 2)
  • PHW206: Maternal and Child Health Nutrition (3 units, Summer 2)
  • PHW206A: Nutrition Assessment (3 units, Spring 1)
  • PHW218: Evaluation of Health & Social Programs (3 units, Spring 2)
  • PHW219: Social and Behavioral Research: Introduction to Survey Methods (3 units, Spring 1 or Summer 2)

Interested in how spatial data can inform healthcare decisions?

Spatial Data Science for Public Health immerses students in the field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which is becoming increasingly central to public health practice, methods, and techniques. As locational information is aligned with health data, public health practitioners increasingly rely on geo-data to increase impact. Students in this track will be empowered to process, manipulate, and visual-spatial data.

  • PHW272A: Intro to GIS for Public Health (3 units)
  • PHW277: GIS for Public Health Practice (3 units)
  • PHW272C: Applied Spatial Data for Public Health (3 units)

Interested in improving healthcare outcomes globally?

Global Health offers students from different levels of public health background an opportunity to apply fundamental principles toward improving population health at a global level. Through diverse courses taught by global health faculty from UC Berkeley and UCSF Global Health Sciences, students gain a trans-disciplinary perspective of how global challenges are being addressed in the field across public health and health science disciplines. Students will be trained on how to integrate new knowledge with their professional and personal experiences.

  • PHW212: Foundations of Global Health (3 units)
  • PHW209: Comparative Health Systems (3 units)
  • PHW213: Global Health Ethics (3 units)