Obesity Program

For Students

Prospective students interested in the Obesity Epidemiology and Prevention Concentration should indicate their interest in their application to HSPH. The concentration will be restricted to doctoral and two-year master’s students in the Epidemiology, Nutrition, and Society, Human Development, & Health. It is difficult to fulfill the requirements of the concentration in one year.

Students are responsible for fulfilling the masters or doctoral degree requirements of their respective departments, in addition to the requirements of the concentration. The students in the concentration are required to take three required core courses on an ordinal grading scale (7.5 credits total), in addition to research methods and biostatistics requirements of their respective departments.

Requirements for Obesity Epidemiology and Prevention Concentration

Students Eligible
  • 2-year Masters
  • Doctoral
  • Departments: Epidemiology, Nutrition, SHDH

Core courses  (7.5 credits, Ordinal grading)
  • Obesity Epidemiology (ID537), Dr. F.B. Hu (2.5 credits)
  • Nutritional Epidemiology (ID214) Dr. W.C. Willett(2.5 credits)
  • Advanced Topics in Obesity Epidemiology and Prevention (ID541), Dr. F.B. Hu and Dr. S. Gortmaker (2.5 credits)

Methods Requirement
  • Met as a part of departmental requirements
Thesis Requirement
  • Thesis work must be relevant to the topic of obesity epidemiology and/or prevention

Process for documenting completion of the concentration

Upon completion of the program requirements, students are required to fill out the corresponding form (see the For Students tab). In return, the curriculum committee will provide the students with a letter recognizing the completion of requirements for the concentration, upon successful verification from the registrar’s office. The co-Chairs will review any requests for exceptions and make recommendations if necessary to accept or deny exceptions. Criteria will be developed to help in granting requested exceptions.  

 

Competencies

The students in the Obesity Epidemiology and Prevention concentration should fulfill their department/program competencies. In addition, they need to fulfill the competencies specifically required for the Obesity Epidemiology and Prevention concentration (see below for Competency Development Grid).


Specific Competencies Course Options (number & title) Course Work/Exam Oral Exam Written Exam Dissertation
Design,conduct, and analyze research on obesity and nutritional epidemiologic andprevention studies 

 

 ID 537ID 214

ID 541

 ObesityEpidemiologyNutritionalEpidemiology

AdvancedTopics in Obesity Epidemiology and Prevention

 

 X X X X
Analyzeand interpret research on community based intervention research for theprevention of obesity and related chronic diseases 

 

 ID 537ID 514 ObesityEpidemiologyAdvancedTopics in Obesity Epidemiology and Prevention

 

 X X X X