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 (2 units)
- PHW200E: Health Policy and Management (3 units)
- PHW142: Introduction to Probability and Statistics (4 units)
- PHW250: Epidemiologic Methods I (3 units)
- PHW289: Interdisciplinary Seminar (3 units)
Course Competency Requirement
Interdisciplinary Program students must complete at least 5 concentration competencies from the list of courses linked below as part of their MPH degree course map to meet the Counsel on Education for Public Health (CEPH) requirements.
Course Planning
Interdisciplinary Program Sample Schedules
- Fall Admit
- Fall Admit – Global Health and Community Health Sciences Focus
- Fall Admit – Nutrition
- Spring Admit – HPM and Spatial Data Science Focus
- Spring Admit – Epi/Bio and Community Health Sciences Focus
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.
Interdisciplinary Program Options
Health Policy Management coursework can serve a variety of professionals — from clinicians to managers to policy leaders — across a range of healthcare areas, including hospitals and health systems, pharma/biotech, medical devices, health insurers, government agencies, think tanks, consulting firms, and digital health.
- PHW223: Strategic Management and the Health Sector (3 units)
- PHW224: Organizational Behavior and Management in Health Care (3 units)
- PHW272A: Health Care Finance (3 units)
- PHW220M: Health Policy Methods (3 units, Summer 2 or Fall 2)
- PHW220A: Biomedical Innovation Policy (3 units, Spring 1)
- PHW226C: Economics of Population Health (3 units)
- PHW226A: Health Economics (3 units)
- PHW226F: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (1 unit)
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)
The intersection of Epidemiology, Infectious Disease, and Regulatory Science 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, while regulatory science focuses on global standards of health practice, product regulation, and public health innovation.
- PHW225A: Introduction to Applied Implementation Science (1 unit, Spring 1)
- PHW225B: Implementation Science Case Studies in Low and Middle Income Countries (1 unit, Spring 2)
- 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)
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 digital tools, mass communication, behavioral determinants of population health, exposure to evaluation tools, and real-world practice with survey methods in addressing population needs.
- PHW204: Mass Communication in Public Health (3 units)
- PHW205: Program Planning (3 units)
- PHW206: Maternal and Child Health Nutrition (3 units)
- PHW206A: Nutrition Assessment (3 units, Spring 1)
- PHW218: Evaluation of Health & Social Programs (3 units)
- PHW219: Social and Behavioral Research: Introduction to Survey Methods (3 units)
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.
- PHW227A: Intro to GIS for Public Health (3 units)
- PHW277: GIS for Public Health Practice (3 units)
- PHW227C: Applied Spatial Data for Public Health (3 units)