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		2008-09 Bulletin of the Duke University Graduate School

Health Policy (HTHPOL)

Christopher Conover, PhD, Program Director

Duke University, through the Center for Health Policy, Law and Management and Education, a part of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, offers an interdisciplinary certificate in health policy for graduate students. The program speaks to the needs of students preparing for careers in health care policy, management, and the associated professions as the American health care industry enters into a period of rapid and profound change.

Courses in the health policy certificate program address three interrelated goals: (1) to investigate the machinery of contemporary health policy-making and to understand the broad political dynamics which have conditioned American health policy, past and present; (2) to familiarize students with the institutional and economic complexity of the American health care system through the study of the interaction between the key players in health care financing and organization-employers, private insurance carriers, government regulators, health care providers and consumers; and, (3) to explore the cultural and ideological underpinnings of modern conceptions of health and the recurrent ethical dilemmas facing health care providers, patients, and policymakers.

The program draws upon established research programs relating to health services centered in economics, political science, public policy, and sociology, but recognizes the inspired contributions to health care debates originating in the disciplines of anthropology, history, law, medical arts, philosophy, psychology, and religion.

Program Requirements

The health policy certificate program is open to all graduate students. Successful candidates must complete the prescribed combination of five courses: two courses drawn from the core set of health policy offerings; any two additional elective courses; and the capstone course. Appropriate courses may come from the list given below or may include other courses (new courses, special topics courses, independent study, and, under special circumstances, courses offered through the UNC School of Public Health¹) as approved by the director.

The following briefly lists courses which qualify towards completion of the graduate certificate. For more detailed course descriptions, see individual departmental listings in this bulletin or our Web page at http://www.hpolicy.duke.edu/certificate.

295. Topics in Health Policy. Topics vary by semester. Instructor: Staff. 3 units.

Capstone Course (required)

Health Policy 255. Health Policy Analysis. Topics vary by semester. Instructor: Staff. 3 units.

Core Courses (any 2 courses)

Regularly Scheduled Courses

Economics 215S. Applied Cost Benefit Analysis. Prerequisite: Economics 149.

Economics 356. Graduate Health Economics 1. Prerequisites: Economics 243 and 301.

Economics 357. Seminar in Health Economics. Prerequisites: Economics 243 and 301.

Health Management 326. Fundamentals of Health Care Markets.

Law 347. Health Care Law and Policy.

Managerial Economics 408. Health Care Systems.

Public Policy Studies 253/Political Science 249. The Politics of Health Care.

Public Policy Studies 263. Public Health Issues: Prevention and Management.

Public Policy Studies 264S.07. Getting Value for Money in Health Care: Rationing in Theory and Practice.

Special Topics Courses, Offered Periodically

Public Policy Studies 263S.01. Health Policy: Prevention and Management.

Elective Courses (any 2 courses)²

African and African American Studies 299S.01/Psychology 262S. Minority Mental Health.

African and African American Studies 299S.01/History 299S.05. Race/Medicine: Historical Perspective.

Biometry 217. Clinical Decision Analysis. Prerequisite: BTP 211.

Community and Family Medicine 247B. Medicine in America.

Community and Family Medicine 256C. Ethical Issues in Medicine.

Christian Ethics 266. Ethics and Health Care.

Economics 372. Advanced Theory of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics

Environment 270L. Resource and Environmental Economics. Prerequisite: introductory course in microeconomics.

Environment 271. Economic Analysis of Resource and Environmental Policies. Prerequisite 270L or equivalent. Economics 149 recommended.

Environment 274. Resource and Environmental Policy. Prerequisite: Environment 251 or equivalent.

Environment 343. Hazard Management, Law and Ethics. Consent of instructor required.

Environment 385. Decision Theory and Risk Analysis. Prerequisite: Environment 251 or equivalent.

History 279. Health, Healing and History.

Interdisciplinary Course 300C/Law 580. Interdisciplinary Seminar in Medical-Legal-Ethical Issues.

Interdisciplinary Course 302C. Exploroing Medicine: Cross-Cultural Challenges to Medicine in the Twenty-First Century.

Law 235. Environmental Law.

Law 301. AIDS Law.

Law 400.01. AIDS Legal Assistance Project.

Law 529.01. Genetics and the Law.

Law 547. Food and Drug Law (seminar).

Law 550. Health Care Financing and Competition (Seminar).

Law 555. International Environmental Law (Seminar).

Law 590. Risk Assessment and Management.

Law 596. Toxic Substance Regulation (Seminar).

Law 598. Violence, the Media, and the Law (Seminar).

Liberal Studies 270.21. Genes, Medicine, and Money.

Liberal Studies 290.45. Health Care, Narrative, and Social Theory.

Liberal Studies 290.53. Aging and Health.

Nursing 303. Issues in Contemporary Health Care Organizations.

Nursing 362. Ethics in Nursing.

Nursing 480. Social Issues, Health, and Illness in the Aged Years.

Physicians Assistant 250. Health Systems Organization

Political Science 176A,B. Perspectives on Food and Hunger.

Public Policy Studies 264S.32. Matters of Life and Death.

Public Policy Studies 264S.70. Policy Implementation.

Public Policy Studies 266S. Comparative Social Policy.

Religion 388. Ethics and Medicine.

Sociology 171. Comparative Health Care Systems.

Sociology 227S, B. Social Behavior and Health.

Sociology 227S, D. Health and Aging.

¹ Subject to regulations governing interinstitutional registration. Note that the School of Public Health semesters and daily schedules differ from those of Arts and Sciences. Interested students should check with the Law School to find exact course times.

² Candidates for the Master's of Public Policy degree or Program for International Development seeking the certificate need only complete one elective course if they write their master's memo on some aspect of health policy.