Degree Requirements

About our Curriculum and Program of Study

Program Overview and Competencies Heading link

The UIC Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) Program’s vision is an anti-racist, just, and equitable society where all people have power and resources to change systems to achieve belonging, economic well-being, and sustained health. Our mission is to strengthen a global community of transformative leaders committed to anti-racism and equity through collective learning, building practice and emergent evidence, and impacting policy and systems change to advance racial justice and health.

We ground our program by building a container for learning, growth, and change toward equity, health and racial justice. A container allows for processes and spaces where all group members feel they belong and the group commits to and practices a shared set of values and norms to achieve shared aims and work through interpersonal, team and organizational change that arises in transformational change work[1].  To build our container, the DrPH Program emphasizes several core values and norms that are practiced in our personal, interpersonal, team, and program spaces including but not limited to meetings, classes, and actions in and with each other. At the time of writing this Handbook in June 2024, these values and norms are being finalized. However, two are articulated here for emphasis and importance.

 Transformational Leadership:  The UIC DrPH program practices transformational leadership emphasizing leadership as a process of engaging diverse strengths. Complex challenges rooted in systems of unjust policies and practices require leadership that goes beyond short-term, individual solutions, transactional change only and persons in authority or who have the most technical expertise. Complex challenges usually require transformational change and leadership in both definition and resolution. The program emphasizes practices of systematic and self-reflection, listening and engaging inclusive voices; strategies for community collaboration; coalition building and organizing; development of a vision toward a shared understanding of challenges; and co-creation toward a generative future designed to shift power and resources that enable liberation for all.

Equity Through Anti-Racism: The UIC DrPH program emphasizes addressing equity through anti-racism in public health, encompassing a breadth of ideas, language and theories and deliberate, conscious actions by individuals and organizations to build relationships and trust to create containers for dialogue; expose structures, policies, and practices that create and sustain racial disparities in health; and confront the underlying root causes of inequities through collaborative, evidence-based action. The DrPH program’s goal for public health centers on dismantling structural racism and transforming systems to realize equity.

[1] Human Impact Partners. Building Containers for Health Equity Work. Website: https://humanimpact.org/hipprojects/building-containers-for-health-equity-work/. Accessed June 19, 2024.

Theory of Change and Anti-Racist and Equity Transformational Leadership Framework

Based on Came and Griffith (2018)[1] and Welter et al (2023)[2], the DrPH Program developed a five phased process of which our program components align. These include: Phase 1: Readiness for anti-racist and equity transformational change; Phase 2: Identify the adaptive challenge and understanding the opportunity for systems change; Phase 3: Explore and assess strategic approach to address the opportunity for A.R.E. systems change; Phase 4: Understanding and implementation readiness and applying approach to address A.R.E. transformational change; and Phase 5: Implement, evaluate and synthesize adaptive A.R.E. transformational change approaches. Applied in an iterative fashion, these phases serve as the process by which students can learn how to practice A.R.E. transformational change.

[1] Came, H., & Griffith, D. (2018). Tackling racism as a “wicked” public health problem: enabling allies in anti-racism praxis. Social Science & Medicine, 199, 181-188.

[2] Welter, C., Davis, S., Elnicki, J., Kulik, P. K., Lloyd, L. M., Tenney, M., … & Walter, C. (2023). Public Health Learning Agenda for Systems Change Toolkit: National Pilot Evaluation Results. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 29(2), 202-209.

The program includes multiple components described in detail below and in the appendix of our handbook. These include program orientation, Summer Institute, 96 credit-hour CEPH and program competency-based coursework, Applied Practice Experience (APE), Integrative Learning Experience (ILE), Coaching, Advising and Mentorship, administration, and an in-development Co-Governance approach to co-creating and revising the program. We are currently cross walking these components to our Theory of Change and developing annual learning objectives overall and with each program component. This alignment will help to show the relationship between the process for A.R.E. transformational leadership and how the program supports this work explicitly.

The University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health DrPH program is competency-driven, following the recommendations of the Association of Schools & Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) and the requirements of the Council on Education in Public Health (CEPH) for the Doctor of Public Health degree.  (https://media.ceph.org/documents/2021.Criteria.pdf )

Our curriculum is aligned with the 20 foundational competencies (FC) promulgated by the CEPH.  In addition, CEPH requires that DrPH degree programs identify at least five concentration specific competencies. For the UIC DrPH Program these concentration-specific competencies (CC) are focused on leadership principles which are central to the program’s mission and vision.  In completing the curriculum, students will achieve a level of mastery for each competency, though it is recognized that each student will approach the competencies from an individual perspective in line with their academic and professional background, interests, and leadership goals.

CEPH Foundational Competencies (FC)

Data & Analysis

  • FC1.  Explain qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods and policy analysis research and evaluation methods to address health issues at multiple (individual, group, organization, community, and population) levels
  • FC2.  Design a qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, policy analysis or evaluation project to address a public health issue
  • FC3. Explain the use and limitations of surveillance systems and national surveys in assessing, monitoring, and evaluating policies and programs and to address a population’s health

Leadership, Management & Governance

  • FC4. Propose strategies for health improvement and elimination of health inequities by organizing partners, including researchers, practitioners, community leaders and others
  • FC5. Communicate public health science to diverse audiences, including individuals at all levels of health literacy, for purposes of influencing behavior and policies
  • FC6. Integrate knowledge, approaches, methods, values and potential contributions from multiple professions and systems in addressing public health problems
  • FC7. Create a strategic plan
  • FC8. Facilitate shared decision making through negotiation and consensus-building methods
  • FC9. Create organizational change strategies
  • FC10. Propose strategies to promote inclusion within public health programs, policies, and systems
  • FC11. Assess one’s own strengths and weaknesses in leadership capacities including cultural proficiency
  • FC12. Propose human, fiscal, and other resources to achieve a strategic goal
  • FC13. Cultivate new resources and revenue streams to achieve a strategic goal

Policy & Programs

  • FC14. Design a system-level intervention to address a public health issue
  • FC15. Integrate community-informed knowledge, such as cultural values and practices in the design of public health policies and programs
  • FC16. Integrate scientific information, legal and regulatory approaches, ethical frameworks and varied parties’ interests in policy development and analysis
  • FC17. Propose interprofessional team approaches to improving public health

Education & Workforce Development

  • FC18. Assess an audience’s knowledge and learning needs
  • FC19.  Deliver training or educational experiences that promote learning in academic, organizational or community settings
  • FC20. Use best practice modalities in pedagogical practice

DrPH Leadership Concentration Competencies (CC)

Anti-racism and Equity

  • CC1.  Centers anti-racism to achieve success in improving individual and community health by confronting and addressing racism in all its forms to eliminate disparities in health and social conditions and achieve health equity.

Systems Thinking

  • CC2. Recognize complex systems by identifying and characterizing relationships between system components, and describing system behavior, dynamics and control influences that produce inequitable risk and protective factors influencing community health, to identify leverage points for systems change.

Systematic Reflection

  • CC3. Employ critical thinking and learning through review, analysis and reflection on empirical and experiential data to inform decision-making and evaluate outcomes.

Building the Evidence Base of Practice

  • CC4. Understand and apply systematic methods using data, theoretical frameworks, and other empirical evidence for assessment and evaluation to inform decision-making, plan interventions, and enhance practice knowledge and scholarship, while fostering dissemination and translation to address complex systems problems.

Transformational Leadership

  • CC5. Understand and analyze complex issues to develop a collaborative and adaptive strategic vision of systems change which engages partners, cultivates motivations of individuals, groups and organizations through self- awareness, effective communication, and co-creation.

Strategic Thinking/Management

  • CC6.  Understand and apply conceptual and analytical thinking to objectively utilize and synthesize critical information related to adaptive problems and systems to develop evidence informed, innovative strategies, actions and plans to address public health problems.

Degree Requirements Heading link

First Year Fall Semester

  • IPHS 521 – Personal Leadership (2 semester hours). Explores personal leadership strengths, values, renewal strategies, building leadership and communication style foundations. Introduces research positionality, paradigms and systems thinking to inform researcher-scholar systematic reflection.
  • IPHS 522 – Epidemiology for Leadership and Equity (2 semester hours). An overview of general epidemiologic principles and methods to assess and build evidence for public health practice toward social, economic, racial and health justice.
  • IPHS 523 – Foundations in Transformational Leadership, ARE, and Adaptive Leadership (3 semester hours). This course explores leadership principles for transformational change toward racial, social, economic and health justice; and examines pedagogical approaches for social justice.

First Year Spring Semester

  • IPHS 524 – Leadership Seminar 2: Strategy Development for Transformational Leadership and ARE (3 semester hours). This course includes concepts, skills and processes to undertake social justice strategy development with organizations and communities to produce transformational change.
  • IPHS 525 – Quantitative Methods for Public Health Leadership Practice (Biostatistics) (2 semester hours). An overview of statistics from a public health leadership and practice perspective, incorporating methods, application, and critical thinking to support transformational systems change and equity.
  • IPHS 526 – Policy Change and Collaboration for Transformative Change and Equity (2 semester hours). This course focuses on leading policy change as public health professionals, including through policy analysis approaches and collaboration with advocates and community power building organizations.

First Year Summer Semester

  • IPHS 527 – Engaged Scholarship: Methods to Identify and Research Complex Problems (3 semester hours). The course covers theories, processes, and methods that guide leaders’ approaches to engaged scholarship and help to identify pathways for systems change and researchable questions.
  • IPHS 528 – Approaches and Tools for Leading Strategic Implementation (Consensus/Negotiation/Fiscal Development) (3 semester hours). This new course will reviews foundational concepts, methods and skills to facilitate implementation of strategy, and foster equity and inclusive approaches to strategic management.

Second Year Fall Semester

  • IPHS 529 – Quantitative and Mixed Research Methods for Transformational Leadership (3 semester hours). Developing understanding and application of quantitative and mixed methodologies as essential tools for researching and addressing complex public health challenges to achieve health equity.
  • IPHS 530 – Qualitative Methods for Transformational Leadership (3 semester hours). This course explores the design and implementation of qualitative research for generating practice-based evidence and developing theories of change relevant to public health leadership.

Second Year Spring Semester

  • IPHS 532 – Systems Thinking (2 semester hours). This course explores the role of systems thinking in leading solutions to complex challenges by providing a process and tools to lead transformational systems change.
  • IPHS 534 – Applied Research Design Seminar (3 semester hours). Advancing equity on complex public health leadership issues requires scholarly practice and practice-based research design approaches such as, case study, action research, and developmental evaluation.
  • IPHS 531 – Applied Practice Experience (APE) Proposal Seminar (2 semester hours). Seminar course to guide development of a proposal for the required DrPH Applied Practice Experience (APE), assuring the project will meet requirements.

Second Year Summer Semester

  • IPHS 540 – Appreciative Inquiry (1 semester hour) Introduces students to Appreciative Inquiry, which can drive positive momentum in how those undertaking change can understand and address complex challenges.
  • IPHS 535 – Implementation Science (Translation/Dissemination/Communication) (2 semester hours).  This course explores the design and implementation of qualitative research for generating practice-based evidence and developing theories of change relevant to public health leadership.
  • IPHS 651 – Applied Practice Experience (APE) (3 semester hours). A practical experience with a practice partner organization exploring a complex public health problem, clarifying understanding and opportunity for social justice and systems change.

Third Year Fall Semester

  • IPHS 536 – Integrated Learning Experience (ILE) Proposal Seminar (3 semester hours). The course follows from the APE to support the student’s ILE (Dissertation) Proposal development, instructing and guiding their progress on Chapters 1, 2, 3.
  • IPHS 533 – Qualitative Methods and Application for Transformational Leadership Practice (2 semester hours). Building on IPHS 530, Qualitative Methods 1, extends student qualitative research methods understanding and application to generate practice-based evidence for systems change and leadership.

Third Year Spring/Summer/Fall Semester

  • IPHS 699 – Research Hours (3-4 semester hours). Faculty guided, individual, focused hours for research in public health practice for the development and completion of their Integrative Learning Experience (ILE)/dissertation.

Chosen from special topics and methods courses, independent study, and other course offerings, these credit hours allow students to build skills towards completing the dissertation and contribute to the evidence base of public health practice.  Courses are selected with the approval of student’s Program Advisor or Chairperson. In general, students must complete electives prior to defending their DrPH Proposal. Minor exceptions may be made with approval of the chairperson and DrPH Program Director.

Most UIC SPH 400-level courses may not be counted to fulfill this requirement. Some courses will be accepted if faculty agrees to add in assignments that cover the leadership relevance of the course.  The 400 level courses that are more technical in nature may be acceptable without the leadership component, but may require additional assignments to raise the student’s performance to the doctoral level. To meet these requirements, a DrPH student should first obtain permission of the course instructor along with permission of the student’s Program Advisor and the DrPH Program Director.

The applied practice experience (APE) is designed as a practical experience with a practice partner organization. Students will use the APE to conduct work and study in practice to explore, clarify and define a complex, adaptive problem or opportunity centered on systems change toward structural, social, economic and health justice. DrPH students engage with an organization in at least one project that is meaningful for the organization and to advance public health practice. Relevant organizations may include, amongst others, governmental, non-governmental, non-profit, industrial, and for-profit settings. The applied practice experience APE may be completed within a student’s own work setting, but must be in an area, topic, activity outside/beyond their normal work duties or responsibilities. The APE products will provide contribution and exploration evidence for scholarship, practice, and transformational change of interest and as well as add value to the APE partner(s) engaged in the project and will demonstrate while demonstrating e CEPH foundational and DrPH concentration competencies.

The DrPH Integrated Learning Experience (ILE) (another term for the Dissertation) is the final challenge of the DrPH Program and is an opportunity for students to demonstrate mastery of the CEPH and DrPH Leadership Competencies at the highest level. The dissertation topic will be carefully chosen by the student through participation in the DrPH curriculum, working with their advisor(s), and based on the student’s interests and competencies. As a demonstration of doctoral-level scholarship, the dissertation must go beyond the scope of efforts that normally would be expected in a professional work assignment and deal with higher level leadership, policy, and methodological and evidence-based aspects of the selected topic. Reflecting the nature of the DrPH degree, the Dissertation will, in most cases, be a work demonstrating the application of doctoral level research skills to a problem or issue of significance to public health leadership. Thus, an acceptable DrPH dissertation will:

Create and/or test a vision and pathway toward that vision through a process of learning and change that advances strategic and systems change toward anti-racism and/or equity

  • Require collaboration with a practice partner
  • Identify and define a complex, adaptive public health problem in practice and related leadership implications
  • Identify and explore theory and evidence to support approach and design
  • Design and conduct scholarly, systematic data collection and analysis using mixed or multi methods
  • Write integrative analysis and interpretation with practice and research recommendations to add to the evidence base of practice.
  • Demonstrates a student’s ability to conduct scholarly empirical research

Additional Information Heading link

Credit for up to 32 semester hours given for previous masters of public health (MPH) or related degree. Incoming students without an MPH may be required to take additional foundational, core MPH courses. Although required for completion of the degree, any credits earned to complete MPH core course deficiencies and/ or the field practicum will not count toward the 96 semester hour minimum requirement for the DrPH degree. It is the student’s responsibility to take and complete MPH-level courses at an accredited school of public health and request transfer of those credits to the UIC School of Public Health.

Trainings are provided through the Online Collaborative Initial Training Initiative (CITI) and the University of Illinois Chicago.

Information Privacy & Security/Health Privacy Training – IPS

Select IPS for Researchers –(Information Privacy and Security (IPS) Stage 1 – Basic Course “Information Security”

Human Subjects Research – HSR

Select Group 2 Human Subjects Research (HSP): Social – Behavioral – Educational Research Investigators and Key Personnel Stage 1 – Basic Course

DrPH Student Handbook (2023 cohorts and prior)