Graduate Program: Course Descriptions for the Master of Science Program in Dental Public Health

Required courses:

DPH:5000 Introduction to Dental Public Health - 2 s.h.
Science, philosophy, and practice of Dental Public Health
DPH:5001 Literature Review Methods: Dental Public Health – 2 s.h.
Concepts and process of literature review, particularly in area of student’s interest. An emphasis is placed on development of scholarly writing skills.
DPH:6002 Research Protocol Seminar - 2 s.h.
Development of a master's thesis protocol; students identify a thesis topic, write a detailed review of the relevant literature, and outline potential research methods.
DPH:6003 Independent Study: Dental Public Health - Health Care Organizations – 1-2 s.h.
Basic organizational arrangements of health services in the United States; analysis of social, political, psychological, and economic forces that shape health services; determinants of utilization, amounts and types of health resources available, methods of financing, government regulation, current issues.
DPH:6004 Principles of Oral Epidemiology - 2 s.h.
General principles of epidemiology, including retrospective, prospective, and cohort study designs; validity and reliability; distribution and determinants of oral diseases - caries, periodontal diseases, oral cancer, malocclusion, fluorosis, and HIV infection.
DPH:5005 Administration of Public Dental Programs - 2 s.h.
Application of general management concepts; includes practical aspects of planning, financing, staffing, implementing, operating, and evaluating Dental Public Health programs at the federal, state, and local levels.
DPH:5006 Preventive Programs in Dental Public Health - 2 s.h.
Public health methods for preventing and controlling major dental conditions, primarily dental caries and periodontal disease; clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness; students develop a comprehensive preventive oral health plan for a community.
DPH:5007 Health Promotion and Behavior - 2 s.h.
Selected literature in the social and behavioral sciences as it applies to dentistry; critical analysis of research. May substitute CBH:5105, CBH:5215 or CBH:5220 for this requirement.
DPH:5008 Field Experience in Dental Public Health - arr.
Directed field experience of varying length, individually arranged with public and voluntary health agencies according to needs of students and agencies.
DPH:6011 Thesis: Dental Public Health - 5 s.h.
Protocol preparation; data collection, analysis, and organization; writing and defense of research.
DPH:5014 Financing Dental Care - 2 s.h.
Mechanisms of payment for health care service providers, third-party prepayment plans, salaried and public-financed programs. Medicaid and Medicare programs, and national health insurance systems.
DPH:5015 Introduction to Statistical Computing - 1 s.h.
Use of statistical packages on a personal computer for data management and analysis. May substitute EPID:5600 for this requirement.
DPH:6017 Teaching Methods and Evaluation – 2 s.h.
Introduction to philosophies of dental education, teaching methodologies, and evaluation. Emphasis on learning to write educational objectives, writing, and analyzing exam item data.
ORSC:5212 Statistical Methods for Dental Research - 3 s.h.
Descriptive methods, elementary probability, distributions, populations and samples, methods for analyzing percentage data and paired and unpaired measurement data, regression, and correlation and analysis of variance.
ORSC:5215 Research Design in Dentistry - 2 s.h.
Types of studies used in dentistry; design validity; sampling methodologies; major descriptive and experimental designs used in dental research; application of statistical tests to these designs.
EPID:4400 Epidemiology I: Principles – 3 s.h.
Epidemiological concepts and methods; design of descriptive and analytic studies, such as aggregate, case series, cross-sectional, case-control, cohort studies; application of epidemiology to public health practice; communication and dissemination of epidemiological findings.

 

One of the following is also required:

DPH:5009 Advanced Field Experience in Dental Public Health - arr.
Opportunity to research, develop, and implement programmatic objectives with local, state, national, and/or federal agencies and organizations on an issue that is both relevant to the student and the agency; may require off-site visits to agencies or organizations.
DPH:6018 Clinical Teaching Practicum: Preventive Dentistry – arr.
Practical teaching experience in Preventive Dentistry clinical setting with first year dental students. Emphasis on clinical teaching methods, evaluation, and remediation.

 

Alternative Courses (to meet Behavioral Sciences Requirement):

One of the following three courses can be taken in the place of DPH:5007

CBH:5105 Introduction to Health Promotion & Disease Prevention – 3 s.h.
Basic concepts, strategies, and methods of health promotion and disease prevention; health promotion in the context of public health, theories and principles that underpin health promotion; overview of policy formation and health promotion planning, implementation, evaluation.
CBH:5215 Community Preventive Programs/Services – 3 s.h.
Orients students to current public health problems and associated community preventive, evidence-based interventions. Provides background information regarding the terms "community" "preventive" and "evidence-based" and develops skills for evaluating reports of existing interventions.
CBH:5220 Health Behavior & Health Education – 3 s.h.
Common theories of health behavior and health education and their application to varied public health problems and settings.
 

Recommended Courses in Statistics:

The following courses from the College of Public Health are strongly recommended.

EPID:5600: Epidemiological Data Analysis with a Computer - 2 s.h.
Organization, collection, management, and analysis of epidemiological data using computer programs.
BIOS:5120: Design and Analysis of Biomedical Studies – 3 s.h.
Simple and multiple linear regression and correlation; one- and two-way layout considerations in planning experiments; factorial experiments; multiple comparison techniques; orthogonal contrasts.

 

Electives:

Other electives should be selected only after consultation with the graduate program director. Some examples of appropriate departmental courses are listed below.

DPH:6003 Independent Study: Dental Public Health - 2 s.h.
Individual study in student's special interest area, which must be approved by faculty supervisor, study design, procedures, and results are reported in a paper.
DPH:6003 Independent Study: Dental Public Health – Research Topics – 1 s.h.
This course emphasizes practical issues in designing research projects
ORSC:5250 Current Concepts in Cariology - 2 s.h.
Etiology of dental caries, its pathogenesis and the development of preventive measures based on this knowledge.

Additional coursework in statistics is recommended. Relevant elective courses also may be chosen from those offered by the Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry, other departments in the College of Dentistry, or the University's programs in the Colleges of Public Health, Medicine, Business Administration, Education, Pharmacy, and Liberal Arts.