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MPH Degree Course Requirements

There are 6 required core and breadth courses for all students earning an MPH degree. These courses, taken primarily in the first year of the program, provide students with a foundation in the concepts and competencies relevant to addressing determinants of health, using both qualitative and data-driven approaches.

  • PHW200G: Health and Social Behavior (3 units)
  • PHW200F: Intro to Environmental Health Science (2 units)
  • PHW200E: Health Policy and Management (3 units)
  • PHW142: Introduction to Probability and Statistics (4 units)
  • PHW250: Epidemiologic Methods I (3 units)
  • PHW289: Interdisciplinary Seminar (3 units)

Course Competency Requirement

Interdisciplinary Program students must complete at least 5 concentration competencies from the list of courses linked below as part of their MPH degree course map to meet the Counsel on Education for Public Health (CEPH) requirements.

View OOMPH Competencies

Interdisciplinary Program Options

To complete the 42 units required for the MPH degree, Interdisciplinary students have the opportunity to tailor their course map to meet their professional and learning goals and can select from the following courses under the public health subject areas below. A full list of courses can be found in our course catalog.

Health Policy Management coursework can serve a variety of professionals — from clinicians to managers to policy leaders — across a range of healthcare areas, including hospitals and health systems, pharma/biotech, medical devices, health insurers, government agencies, think tanks, consulting firms, and digital health.

  • PHW223: Strategic Management and the Health Sector (3 units)
  • PHW224: Organizational Behavior and Management in Health Care (3 units)
  • PHW272A: Health Care Finance (3 units)
  • PHW220M: Health Policy Methods (3 units, Summer 2 or Fall 2)
  • PHW220A: Biomedical Innovation Policy (3 units, Spring 1)
  • PHW226C: Economics of Population Health (3 units)
  • PHW226A: Health Economics (3 units)
  • PHW226F: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (1 unit)

Global Health offers students from different levels of public health background an opportunity to apply fundamental principles toward improving population health at a global level. Through diverse courses taught by global health faculty from UC Berkeley and UCSF Global Health Sciences, students gain a trans-disciplinary perspective of how global challenges are being addressed in the field across public health and health science disciplines. Students will be trained on how to integrate new knowledge with their professional and personal experiences.

  • PHW212: Foundations of Global Health (3 units)
  • PHW209: Comparative Health Systems (3 units)
  • PHW213: Global Health Ethics (3 units)

The intersection of Epidemiology, Infectious Disease, and Regulatory Science involves the study of factors that determine the distribution of health and disease in human populations. The infectious disease curriculum is designed to emphasize the biology and molecular biology of host-pathogen interactions, while regulatory science focuses on global standards of health practice, product regulation, and public health innovation.

  • PHW225A: Introduction to Applied Implementation Science (1 unit, Spring 1)
  • PHW225B: Implementation Science Case Studies in Low and Middle Income Countries (1 unit, Spring 2)
  • PHW251: R for Public Health (2 units)
  • PH271K: Introduction to Data Management and Programming in SAS for Public Health (2 units)
  • PHW250B: Epidemiologic Methods II (4 units)
  • PH252C: Interventional Trial Design (4 units)
  • PHW241: Intermediate Biostatistics for Public Health (4 units)
  • PHW253: Outbreak Investigations (3 units)
  • PHW257: Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response (3 units)
  • PHW236A: Regulatory Science, Drug Development, and Public Health (3 units)
  • PHW260: Infectious Diseases (3 units)

Community Health Sciences offers a combined study of populations, including historically marginalized groups, to include ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status, drawing upon epidemiological, anthropological, and demographic research. This track encompasses the use of digital tools, mass communication, behavioral determinants of population health, exposure to evaluation tools, and real-world practice with survey methods in addressing population needs.

  • PHW204: Mass Communication in Public Health (3 units)
  • PHW205: Program Planning (3 units)
  • PHW206: Maternal and Child Health Nutrition (3 units)
  • PHW206A: Nutrition Assessment (3 units, Spring 1)
  • PHW218: Evaluation of Health & Social Programs (3 units)
  • PHW219: Social and Behavioral Research: Introduction to Survey Methods (3 units)

Spatial Data Science for Public Health immerses students in the field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which is becoming increasingly central to public health practice, methods, and techniques. As locational information is aligned with health data, public health practitioners increasingly rely on geo-data to increase impact. Students in this track will be empowered to process, manipulate, and visual-spatial data.

  • PHW227A: Intro to GIS for Public Health (3 units)
  • PHW277: GIS for Public Health Practice (3 units)
  • PHW227C: Applied Spatial Data for Public Health (3 units)