School of Public and Community Health Sciences

Course Descriptions

Public Health

• PUBH 510 - Intro to Epidemiology

  Credits: 3. Level: Undergraduate, Graduate. Offered spring. Principles and methods of epidemiologic investigation, descriptive and analytic epidemiology techniques, disease frequency, risk determination, study designs, causality, and validity.

• PUBH 511 - History & Theory Epidemiology

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn. This graduate course covers the basic science of public health. Major schools of epidemiology from the Greek, Italian and English traditions will be compared and contrasted Basic concepts and terminology will be introduced and major pandemics used to illustrate the evolution of the field.

• PUBH 512 - Neuroepidemiology

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn. An overview of the fundamental considerations of the history, scope, and methods of neuroepidemiology as a subfield of epidemiology. Specific neurologic diseases and injuries will be studied as to distribution and risk factors, as well as the relationship to international public health.

• PUBH 515 - Public Health Genetics

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn. Basic principles of genetics and genomics, application to public health practices and research. Includes issues in public health genetics such as informed consent, screening for genetic susceptibility, and ethical, legal and social implications.

• PUBH 520 - Fundamentals of Biostatistics

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn.  This course is designed for graduate students and practitioners in public health, biomedical sciences, and related fields.  The course introduces basic vocabulary, concepts, and methods of biostatistics.  The goal is to provide an introduction to how biostatistics works.  Topics will include descriptive statistics, probability,  random variables,  probability distributions,  statistical inference,  chi-square analysis,  linear regression, and correlation.

• PUBH 525 - Multi/Native American Pub Hlth

  Credits: 3. Level: Undergraduate, Graduate. Offered Autumn. This course is designed to provide general overview of multicultural issues within the United States and specifically within Montana. The course will provide overview information abouth ealthd isparitiesw ithin the nation and how these disparities disproportionatelyim pact ethnicm inority populations. Montana's largest minority population is l.lative Arnerican tribal conrmunities.A s a result,m uch of the course will incorporate advanced knowledge and topics relating to regional health disparities facing Native American communities.

• PUBH 530 - Pub Hlth Admin and Mangmnt

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn. Overview of public health and health care systems; organizational structures, functions, authorities, policies and procedures; programmatic budgeting, operations, and prioritizations; program performance reporting and improvement; grants and contracts; informatics; human relations and negotiation; management and leadership; and business planning.

• PUBH 531 - Leadership in Public Health

  Credits: 3. Level: Undergraduate, Graduate. Offered spring. Prereq., PUBH 530 and admission into the M.P.H. or C.P.H. programs, or consent of instr. This course deepens the student’s knowledge and understanding of the role of public health leaders in the community whether in forming partnerships between public health agencies or with private entities. This course begins by building an understanding of the principles of leadership, explores the applications of leadership to public health, develops the relationship between leadership skills and competencies, studies the role of leadership in evaluation and research and concludes with a look at public health now versus how it could be in the future.

• PUBH 535 - Health Policy

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn. The evolution and intersection of international, federal, state, and local public health policy.

• PUBH 540 - Social & Behav Sci in Pub Hlth

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn. Behavioral and social factors relevant to the identification and solution of public health problems, principles of health behavior change, applications, and assessment of interventions.

• PUBH 550 - Progrm Eval & Res Meth

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered summer. Prereq., PUBH 510 or equiv. and consent of instr.  Covers purpose statements, standards, study designs, sampling, measurement, methods for data collection and analysis, interpretation, and report preparation.  Models of evaluation described, and similarities and differences between research and evaluation methods explored.

• PUBH 560 - Environmental & Rural Health

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered spring. Relationship of people to their physical environment, how this relationship impacts health, and efforts to minimize negative health effects.

• PUBH 570 - Ethical Issues in Public Hlth

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered summer. Focus on the values and moral issues that underlie U.S. public health policies. Course examines ethical decision making in areas such as policy development, research, environmental health, occupational health, resource allocation, and genetics.

• PUBH 580 - Rural Health Iss Global Contxt

  Credits: 3. Level: Undergraduate, Graduate. Offered summer. Prereq., 21 credits and consent of instr. Analysis of public-health themes. Focus on rural concerns and transnational influences. Includes human rights, health equity, mobile and vulnerable populations, and transnational competence.

• PUBH 591 - Practicum

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn and spring. Prereq., admission into the M.P.H. program and consent of instructor. Semester long, supervised graduate practicum in a health science setting, followed by an oral defense.  Offered credit/no credit only.

• PUBH 593 - Professional Portfolio

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn and spring. Prereq., PUBH 591 and PUBH 599, admission to the M.P.H. program and consent of instructor. Integrates the student’s practice experience and knowledge gained through course work, practicum, and possibly professional papers and research with the goals and learning objectives of the M.P.H. program into a portfolio. Students will present and defend their portfolio to illustrate their growth as a professional public health practitioner at the end of their M.P.H. program.  Offered credit/no credit only.

• PUBH 595 - Special Topics

  Credits: 1 TO 12. Level: Graduate. (R-12) Offered intermittently. Experimental offerings of visiting professors, experimental offerings of new courses, or one-time offerings of current topics.  Previous topics have included Global Health and Epidemiology of Infectious Disease.

• PUBH 596 - Independent Study

  Credits: 1 TO 6. Level: Graduate. (R-6) Offered autumn and spring. Prereq., admission to the M.P.H., program and consent of instructor. Supervised readings, research, or public health practice.

• PUBH 597 - Research

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. (R-6) Offered autumn and spring. Prereq., admission to the M.P.H. program and consent of instructor. With the guidance of their faculty advisor, students will develop a written proposal specific to the goals of their research project, and carry out the project.

• PUBH 599 - Professional Paper

  Credits: 3. Level: Graduate. Offered autumn and spring. Prereq., admission to the M.P.H. program and consent of instructor. Students will write and submit an original research paper to a peer-reviewed public health or medical journal. Students may also fulfill the professional paper requirement by presenting a conference paper or conference poster to a local, regional, or national \meeting.  Offered credit/no credit only.