Graduate study in public health at Brown has a singular purpose: to train leaders in public health who are armed with the skills to conduct research, bring about policy change, and positively affect the health of populations. The curriculum is comprised of core, concentration, and elective coursework.
All MPH students take core courses designed to develop analytical skills and knowledge in key areas of public health.
*Students must complete one of the following course sequences:
Sequence 1:
Sequence 2:
Students must complete one of the following courses:
Students must complete both of the following half credit courses:
Students must complete one of the following courses:
*Students who matriculated prior to Fall 2018 should click here
The following are prerequisite for entering PHP2071, and must be completed in the summer or first semester of enrollment:
The Brown MPH empowers students to engage in the design and implementation of their educational experience. Students concentrate in one of the public health areas below:
A great emphasis of the Brown MPH Program is to empower students to engage in the design and implementation of their educational experience. Students in the Interdisciplinary Concentration work with advisors to develop their individual path within public health. Students in the Interdisciplinary Concentration will develop an individualized educational plan to gain the competencies required for their path in public health. This will include identifying the focus of the generalist studies for that student, be that a content area (for example Maternal and Children Health, Aging, Mental Health, HIV, etc.) or methodologic focus (advanced methods in public health research/evaluation, etc.).
The Addictions Concentration provides an interdisciplinary foundation to understand substance use, misuse, and addiction and to address the social and health-related costs of addiction. This concentration is designed to prepare MPH students for careers in addiction prevention, program evaluation, and research.
The mission of the Global Health Concentration is to develop public health professionals who are experts in issues related to global health. Global health research and training focus on health inequalities within communities and populations and across populations throughout the world. Global health thus focuses on domestic and international health inequalities, and is not about crossing borders but bridging health inequalities with scientific evidence of etiology and prevention.
The Health Behavior Concentration prepares students to understand and apply theories of health behavior and health promotion to improve population health. Students in the Health Behavior Concentration will gain experience in behavioral-social science frameworks and methodologies for designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions, and in disseminating and translating findings for diverse communities. The Health Behavior Concentration also emphasizes the roles of cultural competence, ethical practice, professionalism, and community collaboration as vital to the design and delivery of public health interventions.
The Health Services Concentration seeks to develop scientists experienced in the use of state of the art experimental and non-experimental research methods for the purpose of advancing fundamental knowledge of issues central to the improvement of population health by focusing on organizational characteristics of health care delivery systems, providers, and economic forces that shape consumer and provider behavior, as well as the policy environment in which these relationships exist. The concentration explicitly seeks to train scientists to optimally contribute as part of multidisciplinary teams in academic posts, government agencies at the state, national and international levels, and in research arms of private sectors of health services delivery organizations. The concentration explicitly seeks to develop scientists skilled in the communication of scientific knowledge, equipped with leadership skills for the purpose of improving services and influencing health policy at the organizational, state, national, and international levels such that those policies lead to more equitable use of resources thus improving health outcomes. The competency-based curriculum provides students with a strong analytic foundation and general health services research orientation.
The Brown University School of Public Health has substantial strengths in Maternal and Child Health (MCH). This includes a vibrant core of interdisciplinary faculty focused on MCH issues from the prenatal period through adolescents. The Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute was launched in 2016, presenting new opportunities for expanding MCH research and education programs at Brown. This is in addition to the existing School of Public Health research centers that include a focus on MCH issues. Beyond the strengths within the School of Public Health, active MCH collaborations extend to the Brown University affiliated hospitals, state government, local government, community organizations and industry.
Find out more about the Maternal and Child Health Concentration
The Brown University School of Public Health has developed substantial strengths in Mindfulness. This includes a vibrant core of interdisciplinary faculty focused on the full spectrum of mindfulness ranging from theory to measurement to treatment delivery to teacher training. The establishment and expansion of a world-leading Mindfulness Center at Brown ([email protected]) under the leadership of Eric Loucks, PhD, presents new opportunities for expanding mindfulness research and education programs at Brown. With the expanded faculty, critically important mindfulness courses have been implemented, and the MPH Concentration in Mindfulness is being launched starting with the class entering Fall 2020.
All students are encouraged to explore their diverse academic interests at Brown. In addition to the core and concentration courses, every student will take 3 general elective courses-approved courses are detailed below. Other graduate-level courses at Brown may be taken with approval.
PHP1070, The Burden of Disease in Developing Countries
PHP1100, Comparative Health Care Systems
PHP1300, Parenting Behaviors and Child Health
ECON1360, Health Economics
PHP1540, Alcohol Use and Misuse (Every other Fall)
PHP1680I, Pathology to Power: Disability, Health and Community
PHP 1690, Technology and Health Behavior Change
PHP1700, Current Topics in Environmental Health
PHP1880, Meditation, Mindfulness and Health
PHP1890, The Craving Mind
PHP1900, Epidemiology of Disorders and Diseases of Childhood and Young Adulthood
PHP1920, Social Determinants of Health
PHP1964, Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention (Every other Fall)
PHP2015, Foundations of Spatial Analysis in Public Health
PHP2023, Maternal and Child Health
PHP2030, Clinical Trials Methodology
PHP2060, Qualitative Methods in Health Research
PHP2220B, Nutritional Epidemiology (Every other Fall)
PHP2220H, The Epidemiology, Treatment and Prevention of HIV (Every other Fall)
PHP2235, Pandemics in Global Perspective: From HIV/AIDS to COVID-19
PHP2250, Advanced Quantitative Methods in Epidemiologic Research
PHP2300, Research Methods in Behavioral Science
PHP2325, Place Matters: Exploring Community-Level Contexts on Health Behaviors, Outcomes and Disparities (Every other Fall)
PHP2340, Behavioral and Social Science Theory for Health Promotion
PHP2365, Public Health Issues in LGBT Populations (Every other Fall)
PHP2370, Etiology of Substance Use Disorders (Every other Fall)
PHP2410E, Medicare: A Data-Based Policy Examination
PHP2445, Minding the Gap: The U.S. Healthcare Safety Net (Every other Fall)
PHP2450, Quality Measurement and Improvement in Health Care
PHP2465A, Intro to Health Decision Analysis
PHP2510, Principles of Biostatistics and Data Analysis
PHP2520, Statistical Inference I
PHP2550, Practical Data Analysis
PHP2560 Statistical Programming with R (Fall)
PHP2601, Linear and Generalized Linear Models
PHP2602, Analysis of Lifetime Data (Normally offered in Fall, but will be taught in Spring 22)
PHP2610, Causal Inference and Missing Data
PHP2710, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Disability and Death in the Global South
PHP2720, Implementing Public Health Programs and Interventions in the Global South
PHP2980, Graduate Independent Study and Thesis Research (Full Credit)
PHP2985, MPH Independent Study for Thesis Preparation and Research (Half Credit)
BIOL2860, Molecular Mechanisms of Human Disease
PHP1600, Obesity in the 21st Century: Causes, Consequences and Countermeasures (Every other Spring)
PHP1610, Tobacco, Disease and the Industry: cigs, e-cigs and more
PHP1650, Race, Racism and Health
PHP1802S, Human Security, Response
PHP1854, The Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Disease
PHP1885, Measuring Mindfulness
PHP2018, Epidemiology of Cardio-Metabolic Health (Every other Spring)
PHP 2040, Survey Research Methods
PHP2024, Engaged Scholarship in Maternal and Child Health
PHP2060, Qualitative Methods in Health Research
PHP 2061, Qualitative Data Analysis in Public Health Research
PHP 2080 Public Health Law and Policy
PHP2130, Human Biology for Public Health
PHP2160, Global Burden of Mental Illness: A Public Health Approach (Every other Spring)
PHP2180, Interpretation and Application of Epidemiology
PHP2200, Advanced Methods in Epidemiologic Research
PHP2220F, Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology
PHP2220E, Topics in Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology
PHP2330, Behavioral and Social Approaches to HIV Prevention
PHP2360, Developing + Testing Theory-Driven, Evidence-Based Psychosocial and Behavioral Health Interventions
PHP 2375, Communicating Science to Lay Audiences
PHP2380, Health Communication
PHP2400, The U.S. Health Care System: Case Studies in Financing, Delivery, Regulation and Public Health
PHP2415, Introduction to Evidence-based Medicine
PHP2440, Intro to Pharmacoepidemiology
PHP2511, Applied Regression Analysis
PHP2516, Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis (Half Credit)
PHP2530, Bayesian Statistical Methods
PHP2580, Statistical Inference II
PHP2650, Statistical Learning and Big Data
PHP2730, Including the Excluded: Global Health Ethics
PHP2980, Graduate Independent Study and Thesis Research (Full Credit)
PHP2985, MPH Independent Study for Thesis Preparation and Research (Half Credit)
BIOL1820, Environmental Health and Disease
MPA2710, GIS and Public Policy
SOC2612, Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Analysis for the Social Sciences
SOC2960G, Spatial Data Analysis Techniques in the Social Sciences