Population and International Health

The Department of Population and International Health seeks to improve global health through education, research, and service from a population-based perspective.

The twenty-first century has arrived with complex changes in demographic patterns, disease burdens, and health policies. These changes are affecting all societies, rich and poor, developed and developing. The department’s approach to these problems combines the analysis of population and health using quantitative and qualitative methods, the investigation of policies that affect health, and a concern with the politics and ethics of health and development. 

The department’s members generate knowledge and ideas through their research, strengthen technical and leadership skills through educational programs, and enhance national capacities through collaborative projects, especially in the developing world. In their examination of population and international health issues, department faculty members draw on their disciplinary expertise in many areas: anthropology, biostatistics, demography, ecology, economics, epidemiology, ethics, medicine, political science, reproductive biology, and sociology. The department’s research interests span a wide spectrum of topics, including social and economic development, health policy, and demography; design and financing of health care systems; women’s health and children’s health; prevention and control of infectious and chronic diseases; and geographic information systems (GIS). The department has a special concern with questions of health equity and human rights, particularly in relation to health and population issues in developing countries. 

Students in the department come with various backgrounds. Many students are from developing countries. All have an interest in the health of disadvantaged populations worldwide. 

Degree Programs in Population and International Health

This 80-credit academic program prepares students for a range of careers in population and international health or can serve as a foundation for further academic training. Some recent graduates have entered doctoral programs at Harvard or elsewhere; their eventual aim is usually to work as researchers in academic institutions. Other graduates have begun careers with foundations, while others work directly for international health and development agencies, for companies, and for nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations in the United States and worldwide.

Applicants must hold a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline. Many entering students already hold advanced degrees in medicine or a social science discipline. The admissions committee looks for candidates with a quantitative background (some evidence of college-level courses in mathematics and statistics with calculus) and for those with relevant prior working experience in international health.

The course work for the SM degree emphasizes the acquisition of skills and concepts necessary to address a range of global population health issues. Of the necessary 80 credits, the required core courses make up roughly half, allowing considerable flexibility for students to tailor their own degree programs; 60 credits must be letter-grade credits, including a 5-credit required thesis. The remainder of the credits may be taken pass/fail.

In the first year of study, students focus on the core courses required by the school and the department. The foundation course on population and international health, offered in the first semester, is taken by all students and provides a common platform for the more advanced work that follows. There are approximately 35 required credits in the first year of study, including schoolwide requirements; courses in demography, population health measurement and risk factors, reproductive health, and ethics; and applied courses in politics and economics. In the summer after the first two semesters of instruction, students are expected to develop their ability to apply their skills and knowledge to contemporary problems in international health by undertaking an internship in the United States or abroad. Students often use this internship and the opportunities it provides to gather information for their thesis. In the WinterSession (January each year), many students join one of the faculty-directed field courses, which in recent years have included work in Palestine, India, Bangladesh, China, and Chile.

The second year involves a combination of course work and independent study, some linked to the thesis. Individual contracts for independent study with faculty members in the school or the university are encouraged in this second year of study. Many students choose to take courses in other Harvard faculties such as the Kennedy School of Government or the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Since students have fewer required courses in the second year, they can specialize in areas of their choice.

The instruction provided through the courses, field visits, and individual or small-group teaching is largely based on the first-hand current research experience of the faculty, who work on a range of applied and theoretical problems in population and international health. The graduating student thus has a solid and up-to-date understanding of the major issues in population and global health, the tools to examine evidence related to priority setting and decision making, and insights into the practical aspects of making population health interventions around the world, including a perspective on the economic, social, political, and ethical considerations that bear on these issues.

Doctor of Science in Population and International Health/Doctor of Public Health

The doctoral programs are designed to prepare students both for professional leadership positions in the public or private sectors of public health and for academic careers in universities or research institutions. Recent graduates have taken positions with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Bank, and nongovernmental organizations and have assumed postdoctoral and teaching positions with universities in the United States and around the world.

Desired applicants have outstanding academic records, substantial relevant experience in the international public health arena, and professional interests relevant to the department. Applicants to the DPH program must hold an MPH and a prior doctoral degree. Though not required for the SD program, a master’s degree is strongly recommended. Students are encouraged to enter the department’s 80-credit master’s degree program and apply to enter the doctoral program at a later date. Entry to the doctoral program will then depend upon outstanding performance in the master’s degree program and acceptance through the regular doctoral program admission process.

In addition to schoolwide requirements, doctoral students must complete a common core of course work with a focus on global health. The core course work is completed in the first year. Core courses cover economics, ethics, politics, quantitative and qualitative methods, and population health measurement. The second year of the doctoral program usually involves both course work and research planning.

Applicants to the doctoral program must select one of three areas of interest currently offered by the department: economics, health systems, or population and reproductive health. The selected area becomes the student’s required major for the doctoral program. Although course requirements for a specific area of interest may be taken concurrently with the core, the majority of these will be taken during the second year of study. The two required minor fields may be chosen from the department or from allied departments of the school or university, including the HSPH Departments of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Nutrition, or Society, Human Development, and Health.

The three areas of interest offered by the department are described below:

Economics
The economics area of interest is designed to give students a strong foundation in microeconomic theory and to develop their skills in applying economic analysis to issues in population and international health. In addition to economic theory, students will also study recent empirical economic research on population and international health issues. The rigorous training provided in this area of interest, together with interdisciplinary training in other areas, will allow students to undertake their own research using economic models of behavior. While the required courses for this area can be completed in two years, it is recommended that students take additional advanced courses during their third year in the Department of Economics in the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Research topics that might be pursued within the economics area of interest include the costs and benefits of public health interventions, the effect of poverty and social deprivation on health, the impact of health improvements on the economy, the effect of government regulation on market structures and private health care provision, mechanisms for developing new drugs and treatments, and the effect of family size on child poverty and health.

Health systems
The health systems area of interest trains students to apply a multidisciplinary approach to advanced research on health care systems. The focus of this area is to develop new knowledge to improve the design, implementation, and evaluation of strategies to improve health and equity in middle- and lower-income countries through better health system performance. Through course work and applied research, students will learn to integrate theories and methods from economics, political science, ethics, and management and administration and to apply them to the critical international health system issues of the day.

Examples of research topics in this area of interest might include the impact on national health spending of changes in health system organization, the effect of decentralization on priority health service programs, consumer response to characteristics of public and private health care providers in developing countries, and evaluation of strategies to improve administrative and management efficiency in government services.

Population and reproductive health
The population and reproductive area prepares students for independent research on population health issues worldwide. Through required courses, seminars, and independent study, the area provides a solid foundation in the essential demographic, epidemiologic, and statistical concepts and methods needed for the analysis of levels, trends, and differentials in population health and its determinants. A key element of the training is grounding in methods for the measurement of fertility, mortality, and morbidity levels and their biological, environmental, and behavioral determinants, including health risk factors. Several courses illustrate the way in which methods and models based on demographic estimation techniques and epidemiologic relationships can be applied to new challenges in national, regional, and global burden of disease assessments. The training is strongly quantitative, with an emphasis on analytical techniques, but competence in the application of qualitative methods and an understanding of the broader socioeconomic and anthropological theories of population health is also expected.

Students within this area have recently written dissertations on such topics as HIV/ AIDS in Tanzania, gender-based violence and reproductive health in Jordan, risk factors for the global burden of chronic diseases, causes and consequences of induced abortion in Ghana, and intergenerational factors in child growth and health in rural Africa.

Postdoctoral Fellowships

The Takemi Program offers postdoctoral fellowships for professionals and scholars from around the world for research and advanced, interdisciplinary training on critical issues of international health, especially those related to developing countries. The program addresses problems of mobilizing, allocating, and managing scarce resources to improve health, and of designing strategies for disease control and health promotion. The program can fund a limited number of fellowships each year and can assist in identifying external sources of funding, which applicants are encouraged to pursue.