Epidemiology MPH

Foundational Competencies

• Apply epidemiological methods to settings and situations in public health practice
• Select quantitative and qualitative data collection methods appropriate for a given public health context
• Analyze quantitative and qualitative data using biostatistics, informatics, computer-based programming, and software, as appropriate
• Interpret results of data analysis for public health research, policy, or practice
• Compare the organization, structure, and function of health care, public health, and regulatory systems across national and international settings
• Discuss the means by which structural bias, social inequities, and racism undermine health and create challenges to achieving health equity at organizational, community, and systemic levels
• Assess population needs, assets, and capacities that affect communities’ health
• Apply awareness of cultural values and practices to the design, implementation, or critique of public health policies or programs
• Design a population-based policy, program, project, or intervention
• Explain basic principles and tools of budget and resource management
• Select methods to evaluate public health programs
• Discuss the policy-making process, including the roles of ethics and evidence
• Propose strategies to identify relevant communities and individuals and build coalitions and partnerships for influencing public health outcomes
• Advocate for political, social, or economic policies and programs that will improve health in diverse populations
• Evaluate policies for their impact on public health and health equity
• Apply leadership and/or management principles to address a relevant issue
• Apply negotiation and mediation skills to address organizational or community challenges
• Select communication strategies for different audiences and sectors
• Communicate audience-appropriate public health content, both in writing and through oral presentation to a non-academic, non-peer audience with attention to factors such as literacy and health literacy
• Describe the importance of cultural humility in communicating public health content
• Integrate perspectives from other sectors and/or professions to promote and advance population health
• Apply a systems thinking tool to visually represent a public health issue in a format other than standard narrative

Major Competencies

• Define a problem and formulate a testable hypothesis
• Review and critically evaluate the validity of the design, analysis, and interpretation of findings from published research studies
• Create and manage datasets appropriate for epidemiologic analyses from sources such as surveillance, large-scale data (i.e, Big Data, such as electronic medical records, administrative claims data) or other health-related research
• Conduct univariable and multivariable regression and other semi- and non-parametric analytic techniques of an epidemiologic data set using a standard statistical software package
• Create effective peer-review quality written and visual summaries of analysis results