Courses & Degree Requirements
Degree Requirements
Students in the UW Master of Public Health in Community-Oriented Public Health Practice program must complete a minimum of 63 credits, consisting of:
- 36 core credits
- 6 elective credits
- 6 seminar credits
- 6 practicum credits
- 9 credits of a capstone project
Core Courses
Core courses teach public health competencies through a problem-based learning approach. You'll work in small teams to analyze public health case studies, developing your own solutions with guidance from a faculty facilitator.
Case studies are created by COPHP faculty to target a course's learning objectives. By the time you graduate, you will have addressed more than 250 learning objectives through about 50 case studies.
Core Course Sequence
Year One
Autumn Quarter
HSERV 531: Population Health & Community Development
Winter Quarter
HSERV 533: Analytic Methods – Epidemiology & Biostatistics
Spring Quarter
HSERV 534: Health Behavior, Health Promotion & Environmental Health
Year Two
Autumn Quarter
HSERV 537: Health Policy
Winter Quarter
HSERV 538: Participatory Evaluation & Community Engagement
Spring Quarter
HSERV 540: Management & Leadership
Electives
To fulfill the electives requirement, students can choose from a wide variety of courses offered by the School of Public Health and other schools at the University of Washington. Students who are also pursuing a graduate certificate in a public health specialty often take elective courses in their particular specialty.
Seminars
Seminars meet weekly throughout the program. They serve as ways to supplement coursework, showcase leaders and role models in the local public health community, and discuss transcending, urgent and timely public health issues.
Practicum and Capstone Project
In the practicum, which takes place the winter and spring quarters of the first year, students gain practical skills in public health practice by working onsite six hours a week at a public health-related organization.
The yearlong capstone project typically begins in the fall of the second year or the summer before. It allows students to apply their increasingly advanced public health skills in a community-based setting.