Vanderbilt MPH Program’s new track fosters next generation Health Policy leaders
Vanderbilt’s Master of Public Health (MPH) Program welcomed a new health policy track to its curriculum starting this fall semester. For almost 20 years, Vanderbilt’s MPH program has provided outstanding epidemiologic training, primarily to physicians. In 2013, the program added a global health track, and began recruiting a greater variety of students, including those without doctoral degrees. The health policy track represents a further expansion of this program that will maintain its high faculty to student ratio and small size (25 to 30 students per year for the program as a whole).
Health Policy Track Director, David Stevenson, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Health Policy, has worked to design the track to prepare students for health policy leadership positions in a wide range of applied roles including analysts, consultants, and policymakers, while understanding the connections between public health and policy in the 21st century. By analyzing how changes to public health policy and financing influence service delivery, health care spending, quality of care, and access to services, students in the new track will be prepared for health policy leadership positions in the public and private sectors upon graduation.
“Vanderbilt’s new health policy track recognizes the long-standing intersection between public health, health care, and the regulatory and payment policies that impact them both,” Stevenson said.
“The addition of a health policy track to the MPH program expands the course choices for all of our students and helps make the Vanderbilt MPH program an extremely attractive option,” said Marie Griffin, M.D., M.P.H., Director of the Vanderbilt MPH Program.
Students in the new track are required to take the core public health coursework, and their schedules also include Health Economics, U.S. Health Policy, Research Ethics, and Decision Analysis. While completing their 240-hour practicum, students will gain experience in settings such as hospitals, managed care organizations, consulting firms, advocacy organizations, non-governmental agencies, public health departments, or local, state, and federal agencies.
After previous experience in the healthcare system, first-year Vanderbilt MPH student, Sarah Greenberg, was excited to find a MPH track that so closely aligns with her passions in public health.
“I always had a passion to serve the community and patients, and after working within the healthcare system I saw the implications polices have directly on patients and physicians,” Greenberg said. “The MPH health policy track was the perfect opportunity to combine my passions for medicine, community and policy in order improve quality care on a national and local level."