The MPH in Policy curriculum is focused on three areas. First, our training develops an individual’s ability to identify policies (e.g., court decisions, laws, regulations) across all levels and branches of government, and then deconstruct these policies into component parts (e.g., program eligibility requirements), identify valid differences across policies (e.g., different age definitions for eligibility), and consider how the policies work together or in conflict to shape health care outcomes. The ability to define and distinguish among public health policies offers an immediate application for policy makers and the organizations that work directly with them.

A second area of training focuses on an individual’s ability to formulate public health policies. Students will learn how to deconstruct a particular policy, apply different theoretical models of policy formation (deductively and inductively), and be able to develop effective strategies to formulate viable public health policy alternatives.

A third focus is to develop an individual’s ability to communicate information about health policy issues.  Students will partake in the organization and administration of seminars and conferences, prepare presentations and testimony, and produce information in multi-modal mediums including in-person, on-line, and written formats. This focus also has an immediate application for policy makers and related organizations.

Upon completion of the MPH in Policy, graduates should be able to demonstrate the ability to collect and summarize information relevant to an issue, define public policy problems and generate viable alternatives, interpret and implement health law, regulation and other policies, articulate clinical, fiscal, administrative, legal, social and political perspectives on health policy, use current techniques in decision analysis and conduct health planning that includes goals, outcomes, processes, discrete steps and methods of evaluation and prepare and implement emergency response and other critical public health planning programs.