Courses

The course descriptions below are correct to the best of our knowledge as of June 2010. Instructors reserve the right to update and/or otherwise alter course descriptions as necessary after publication. The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. The Course Rotation Guide lists the expected semester a course will be taught. Paper copies are also available in the BUSPH Registrar’s office. Please refer to the published schedule of classes for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• SPH SB 813: Designing and Evaluating Websites for Public Health Interventions
  The class is designed to ground students in current eHealth trends and issues, and to guide them through the critical steps in conceptualizing, designing, and evaluating theory-guided and user-centered web-based health communication interventions. During the semester each student will develop a proposal for a health website as well as basic prototype web pages, conduct formative research, produce storyboards, and conduct preliminary user testing. Although the course emphasis is on the design process and not web development technology, students will be introduced to the Dreamweaver web authoring tool at a beginning level.
• SPH SB 818: Qualitative Research Methods
  SB721 This course is designed to provide students with experience in the use and application of qualitative research methods for public health activities including needs assessments, research studies, intervention strategies, and program evaluations. Students are introduced to the quantitative versus qualitative data debate in social science research. Emphasis is placed on the practice of qualitative research and each student designs and conducts a research project. Throughout the semester students' field proposals, problems, process, and progress are discussed as are methodological issues including objectivity, sampling, data collection, ethics, and data analysis. Due to the intensive nature of the class, it is not suitable for auditors.
• SPH SB 820: Assessment and Planning for Health Promotion
  This course will introduce students to neighborhoods of Boston and provide opportunities for acquiring and practicing community assessment skills. How do public health scientists and practitioners demonstrate that a health problem in a community warrants intervention? Students will learn to consult large data sets (such as the U.S. Census, hospitalization data, vital records, MassChip, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System) to determine health promotion needs of a specific neighborhoods and groups. Students will practice conducting literature reviews and health problem analyses to examine social determinants and propose ‘webs of causation’ for selected health outcomes. The focus of the course is on applying both quantitative and qualitative skills, learning to present data clearly and accurately, and communicating effectively using a scientific writing style.
• SPH SB 821: Intervention Strategies for Health Promotion
  This course focuses on strategic planning for public health practice. Social science and maternal and child health approaches are included. Working through a sequence of written assignments, students develop a strategic plan for a program intervention designed to change health behavior or a health outcome. Work in class and during individual consultations is designed to give students practice with elements of the strategic planning process, ideas for their project, and interim feedback on their written assignments.
• SPH SB 822: Quantitative Methods for Program Evaluation
  This course provides an overview of the major principles and methods associated with systematic evaluation of public health programs. The overall goal is to help students develop skills needed to plan, conduct, critique, and use evaluation research. The course covers: program logic models; formative, process and outcome evaluations; internal, external, validity; threats to internal validity; experimental and quasi-experimental designs; probability and non-probability sampling; questionnaire development; operationalization of variables; statistical analysis strategies; power analysis; and analysis of evaluation design.
• SPH SB 833: Designing and Implementing a Public Health Communication Campaign
  What does it take to design a health communication campaign? Who is involved? What media should you use? What works? Should you hire an ad agency, do it yourself, and/or engage the participation of members of your target audience? These are just a few of the questions that will be addressed by students of SB833. In “Designing …” students will develop and implement a mock health communication campaign on a topic selected by the class. The process will include topic research, audience selection, writing a communication plan, brand and message creation. Students will “sell” their idea by responding to an RFP. Then, students will break into groups to implement their plan. They may create or facilitate the creation of websites, marketing materials, video, and/or any other products deemed effective and feasible.
• SPH SB 860: Strategies for Public Health Advocacy
  This course is for advanced MPH students. It will explore the role public health practitioners can play in advocating for programs and policies to improve the public's health that have been demonstrated to be effective through peer reviewed scientific research. Students will analyze the process of advocating for policy and program change based on scientific evidence at the city, state and federal level through the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.
• SPH SB 871: Advanced Topics in Social & Behavioral Sciences
  This seminar is offered on an occasional basis and provides an opportunity to explore special topics in social and behavioral sciences at an advanced level. The seminars may be offered by SB faculty, visiting scholars, or faculty or practitioners from other institutions. Seminars may be offered on a one time basis, or, in some cases, offered as a trial for a new course. In Spring 2010, the topic is: Nasty Habits: Public Health and Private Choices
• SPH SB 888: Proposal Development in Advanced Intervention and Evaluation Research
  The purpose of this seminar is to provide DrPH students and advanced MPH students with the skills for writing proposals and conducting rigorous evaluations for social and behavioral topics. The seminar is comprised of three sections: descriptive epidemiology, biology, and social determinants of a public health problem; the development of an intervention program for the public health problem described in the first section; and the development of a rigorous trial of the intervention developed in the second section. For each of the sections, students will write a proposal similar to a doctoral dissertation or foundation grant proposal. The seminar is structured around group discussion of a series of weekly exercise assignments and one-on-one meetings with faculty. The final exercise is designed to help students develop a Background and Significance section and a Research Methods section, pursuant to the specifications of a grant application for the NIH. Trainees who want to learn how to write proposals, both for dissertations and for submission for funding, should consider taking this course.
• SPH SB 921: Directed Studies in Social & Behavioral Sciences
  Directed Studies provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a full-time SPH faculty member. Students may register for a 1, 2, 3, or 4-credit directed study by submitting a paper registration form and a signed directed study proposal form. Directed studies with a non-SPH faculty member or an adjunct faculty member must be approved by and assigned to the department chair. Students are placed in a section by the Registrar’s Office according to the faculty member with whom they are working. Students may take no more than eight credits of directed study, directed research, or practica courses during their MPH education.
• SPH SB 922: Directed Research in Social & Behavioral Sciences
  Directed Research provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a full-time SPH faculty member. Students may register for 1, 2, 3, or 4 credits. To register, students must submit a paper registration form and signed directed research proposal form. Students are placed in a section by the Registrar’s Office according to the faculty member with whom they are working. Students may take no more than eight credits of directed study, directed research, or practica courses during their MPH education.

Note that this information may change at any time.

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