MS in Epidemiology Curriculum | Icahn School of Medicine

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND PUBLIC HEALTH EDUCATION PROGRAMS

The Master of Science in Epidemiology program offers an innovative and comprehensive curriculum designed to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to tackle complex public health challenges. As a student in the program, you will undergo rigorous training in foundational concepts, theory, and advanced methods of epidemiology, with a strong emphasis on applying quantitative research skills. The curriculum is carefully crafted to ensure students acquire expertise in hypothesis formation and testing, data collection, statistical computing, research design, and interpretation of results and findings.

You will complete a thesis or manuscript under the mentorship of a faculty member in an area of your interest, as part of your culminating experience. Possible areas include environmental health, cancer, global health, infectious diseases, nutrition, aging, and population health.

You are expected to complete 34 credits with a minimum grade point average of 3.0 (B). You will take 25 units of core courses and choose three epidemiology electives, allowing you to choose the subject matter that aligns with your interest and career goals.

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Core courses for the Master of Science in Epidemiology program include:

Introduction to Biostatistics
Introduction to Epidemiology
Epidemiology II
Epidemiology III
Statistical Computing with SAS
Applied Linear Models I
Applied Linear Models II
MS in Epi Research Seminar, Epidemiology
Culminating Experience/MPH 0099 Thesis

You have the option to choose three electives across a variety of pertinent epidemiological topics:

Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases
Big Data Epidemiology: Intro to OMICS
Intro to Epi Data Analysis With R
Cancer Epidemiology
Mental Health in the Modern Age
Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology
Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology
Molecular Epidemiology
Genetic Epidemiology

Students are required to complete a culminating experience, in the form of a master’s thesis or first author manuscript. The type of project completed will depend on your topic of interest. The goal is for you to synthesize, integrate, and apply the skills and competencies you have acquired to a public health problem.

Thesis

Researching and writing a thesis gives you a chance to explore and develop ideas learned in the classroom. The goal of the thesis is to advance or create new knowledge to an existing body of research. You will develop a research question and a hypothesis based on previous research on the topic, then gather data (either through primary or secondary data collection) and analyze the data. The findings are then discussed as to whether or not they support the hypothesis. The study should be designed so that the results of the analysis are applicable to a larger population, rather than only to the sample used in your data analysis. The master’s thesis is a research-oriented project.

Manuscript

You may choose to prepare a manuscript of publishable quality for submission to a scholarly journal. You will determine with your faculty advisor which journal is most appropriate for your topic.