MPH Functional Certificate: Health Policy and Law

Improving healthcare requires smart policies that rest on sound evidence. Major challenges include assuring affordable healthcare for all; containing costs and cutting waste; assuring availability of the right caregivers in the right places; and relying on governments, professionals, and markets to take on jobs they are competent to perform. This certificate equips students to analyze, design, and improve policies and laws in the US or other nations.

Upon graduation, students in the 16-credit certificate will be able to:

• Critically evaluate health policies, both domestically and globally, with special attention to political power, money, and equity.
• Appraise and defend the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of health policies.
• Develop policy proposals that recognize financial, political, and legal constraints.
• Determine the factors influencing successful policy implementation.
• Articulate and support policy and legal analyses to different audiences in writing and orally.

Course Requirements

• SPH PM 735 Health Care Finance (4 cr) or PM 833 Health Economics (4 cr)
• SPH PM 760 Health Law, Policy, and Policymaking (4 cr)
• A minimum of 4 credits from the following courses*:
  • SPH LW 830 Health Insurance and the Affordable Care Act (4 cr)
  • SPH LW 850 Public Health Law (4 cr)
  • SPH LW 854 Mental Health Law, Policy & Ethics (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 735 Health Care Finance (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 740 Comparative Health Systems and Policy in Industrialized and BRIC Countries (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 802 Pharmaceutical Management, Policy, and Practice in the 21st Century: A Case Study Approach (2 cr)
  • SPH PM 833 Health Economics (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 834 Planning and Regulating to Fix Health Care (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 840 Analysis of Current Health Policy Issues (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 851 Organizing and Advocacy for Health Policy Change (4 cr)
  • SPH SB 860 Strategies for Public Health Advocacy (4 cr)
• Complete one of the following courses, preferably in your final semester*:
  • SPH LW 850 Public Health Law (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 740 Comparative Health Systems and Policy in Industrialized and BRIC Countries (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 834 Planning and Regulating to Fix Health Care (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 840 Analysis of Current Health Policy Issues (4 cr)
  • SPH PM 851 Organizing and Advocacy for Health Policy Change (4 cr)

*A course can satisfy only one of the requirements.

Integrative Learning Experience

Students will participate in one of several mock legislative, regulatory, or legal hearings. The topics and stakeholder perspectives will be selected by the certificate director and other faculty members from healthcare controversies facing federal or state governments.