The Department of Health Policy & Management offers one of the two health systems research doctoral programs in the country. This Ph.D. in Public Health with a concentration in health systems research prepares graduates to analyze health services, health systems and health policy/management from a systems perspective. This means that students apply systems modeling such as agent-based modeling, system dynamic simulations, social network models and geospatial models to the design and evaluation of health systems and health policies.
Systems thinking is a problem-solving approach that challenges the decision-maker to look beyond the health system to find out what needs to be changed to improve population health and determine where resources will be the most efficient and effective. The program is geared to helping students complete their dissertations in four years and is a fully hybrid curriculum. The total credits are 70.