The PhD program in population health brings together multiple disciplines, illustrating the complex factors that affect the health and well-being of populations. The program addresses the interaction between health systems and other sectors of society, including the private sector, government, nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations, media and academia to affect the health outcomes of entire populations.
Required courses reinforce a strong repertoire of systems science, quantitative and qualitative research methods, epidemiology and biostatistics, and ethics. The practicum offers an applied experience, and the dissertation requires novel research on population health.
Students personalize their program of study by completing courses from one of four tracks: health equity, complex adaptive systems, urban environments for health, or dissemination and implementation science.
The health equity track trains doctoral students to conduct empathetic research, incorporating the lived experience of populations vulnerable for health disparities into applied research. Students use an asset-based approach to collaborate with populations to improve health outcomes to address social determinants of health.
In the complex adaptive systems track, students learn about theory, principles, models and techniques used to analyze complex systems and data as applied to population health.
Exacerbated by population growth and climate change, city-dwelling populations are experiencing health challenges such as new and re-emerging infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, obesity, poor water quality and injuries from road trauma. The urban environments for health track prepares students to meet those challenges from an evidence-based and transdisciplinary environmental perspective.
Conventional health research is not designed with implementation in mind. Researchers and practitioners often do not have the skills necessary to effectively promote organizational change and transformation in health and healthcare settings. The dissemination and implementation science track trains students to identify, translate and implement research that will enable rapid dissemination of evidence.

