Health Policy
Faculty of the Committee on the Doctor of Philosophy in Health Policy
Joseph P. Newhouse, John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management (Kennedy School, Public Health) and Professor of Health Care Policy (Medical School) (Chair)
Alyce S. Adams, Assistant Professor of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (Medical School)
Katherine Baicker, Professor of Health Economics (Public Health)
Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis (Public Health, Kennedy School)
David Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography (Public Health)
Allan M. Brandt, Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine, and Professor of the History of Science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (on leave fall term)
Daniel P. Carpenter, Allie S. Freed Professor of Government (on leave 2007-08)
Amitabh Chandra, Assistant Professor of Public Policy (Kennedy School)
Michael Chernew, Professor of Health Care Policy (Medical School)
Nicholas A. Christakis, Professor of Sociology (FAS) and Professor of Medical Sociology (Medical School)
Paul D. Cleary, Professor of Medical Sociology (Medical School)
David M. Cutler, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, Dean for the Social Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Norman Daniels, Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics and Professor of Ethics and Population Health (Public Health)
Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management (Business School)
Arnold M. Epstein, John H. Foster Professor of Health Policy and Management (Public Health) and Professor of Medicine and Health Care Policy (Medical School)
Erica M. Field, Assistant Professor of Economics
Richard G. Frank, Margaret T. Morris Professor of Health Care Policy (Medical School)
Guy S. Gazelle, Professor of Radiology (Medical School) and Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management (Public Health)
Susanne J. Goldie, Roger Irving Lee Professor of Public Health (Public Health)
David C. Grabowski, Associate Professor of Health Care Policy (Medical School)
James K. Hammitt, Professor of Economics and Decision Sciences (Public Health)
Robert S. Huckman, Associate Professor of Business Administration (Business School)
Haiden A. Huskamp, Associate Professor of Health Care Policy (Medical School)
Nancy M. Kane, Professor of Management (Public Health)
Gary King, David Florence Professor of Government
Michael R. Kremer, Gates Professor of Developing Societies
Bruce E. Landon, Associate Professor of Health Care Policy and of Medicine (Medical School)
Peter V. Marsden, Harvard College Professor and Professor of Sociology
Marie C. McCormick, Professor of Pediatrics (Medical School) and Sumner and Esther Feldberg Professor of Maternal and Child Health (Public Health)
Thomas G. McGuire, Professor of Health Economics (Medical School)
Barbara J. McNeil, Ridley Watts Professor of Health Care Policy and Professor of Radiology (Medical School)
Nolan H. Miller, Associate Professor of Public Policy (Kennedy School)
Carl N. Morris, Professor of Statistics
Sharon-Lise T. Normand, Professor of Health Care Policy (Medical School) and Professor in the Department of Biostatistics (Public Health)
Gary Pisano, Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of Business Administration (Business School) (on leave 2008-09)
Lisa A. Prosser, Assistant Professor of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (Medical School) and Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management (Public Health)
Meredith B. Rosenthal, Associate Professor of Health Economics and Policy (Public Health)
Donald B. Rubin, John L. Loeb Professor of Statistics
Joshua A. Salomon, Associate Professor of International Health (Public Health)
Stephen B. Soumerai, Professor of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (Medical School)
David G. Stevenson, Assistant Professor of Health Policy (Medical School)
B. Katherine Swartz, Professor of Health Policy and Economics (Public Health) (Director of Graduate Studies)
Milton C. Weinstein, Henry J. Kaiser Professor of Health Policy and Management and Biostatistics (Public Health) and Professor of Medicine (Medical School) (on leave 2008-09)
Alan M. Zaslavsky, Professor of Health Care Policy (Medical School)
Richard J. Zeckhauser, Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Political Economy (Kennedy School)
Graduate Program in Health Policy
The PhD in Health Policy, awarded by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, draws upon the resources of six faculties: the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the School of Public Health, the Medical School, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, the Law School, and the Graduate School of Business Administration. This degree is intended primarily for students seeking teaching careers in institutes of higher learning and/or research careers in policy.
Students in the PhD Program in Health Policy choose a concentration and meet specific curriculum requirements in one of seven disciplines: decision sciences, economics, ethics, evaluative science and statistics, management, medical sociology, or political analysis. In addition to choosing a concentration, students specialize in one of five areas of policy interest: environmental health, health care services, international health, mental health, or public health.
Decision Sciences (Professor Milton C. Weinstein, Chair). Decision sciences are the collection of quantitative techniques that are used for decision making at the individual and collective level. They include decision analysis, risk analysis, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, decision modeling, and behavioral decision theory, as well as parts of operations research, microeconomics, statistical inference, management control, cognitive and social psychology, and computer science.The concentration in decision sciences prepares students for research careers that involve the application of these methods to health problems.
Economics (Professor Joseph P. Newhouse, Chair). The concentration in economics focuses on the economic behavior of individuals, providers, insurers, and international, federal, state, and local governments and actors as their actions affect health and medical care. In addition to examining the literature on health economics, the training emphasizes microeconomic theory, econometrics, and interactions with other disciplines, including clinical medicine. The concentration prepares students for research and teaching careers as health economists.
Ethics (Professor Norman Daniels, Chair). The ethics concentration integrates quantitative, qualitative, and normative approaches to the analysis of ethical issues in health policy and clinical practice. Increasingly, the investigation of ethical issues in medicine and health policy has not only drawn on normative ethics and political philosophy, but has included empirical research concerning attitudes and practices in clinical and broader institutional settings. A grasp of normative theories and tools is important because ethical principles and approaches underlie, explicitly or implicitly, the formulation of particular health policies at both the macro and micro level. Students in this track will focus on developing skills in a range of disciplines, with the goal of evaluating how ethical and socio-cultural values shape—and should shape—health policies as well as clinical and public health practices. Students with a strong background in ethics and political philosophy will have a chance to deepen that understanding and apply it to issues in health policy, while at the same time acquiring necessary quantitative skills. Students with degrees or training in related fields, such as law or medicine or public health, will acquire both normative and quantitative skills needed for research and teaching in ethics and health policy.
Evaluative Science and Statistics (Professor B. Stephen Soumerai and Professor Alan M. Zaslavsky, Co-Chairs). The concentration in evaluative science includes research design, statistics and probability, and quantitative methods in biometry, economics, epidemiology, psychology, and sociology. This training enables students to design experiments and surveys, to perform health outcome assessment studies, to develop statistical models and analyses to evaluate these studies, and to make statistical inferences from observational data sets that arise from health policy and medical care processes. This concentration prepares students to evaluate alternative policy options in health care.
Management (Professor Amy C. Edmondson and Associate Professor Robert S. Huckman, Co-Chairs). The management concentration prepares students to do research on the organizational, managerial, and strategic issues facing health care providers, payers, and other players in the health care market. Students in this track will learn how theories and concepts from fields such as technology and operations management, organizational behavior, organizational economics, and competitive strategy can be applied to--and further developed for understanding--health care organizations. Students in this track should have a strong interest in pursing research on such issues as the design and improvement of health care delivery processes, approaches for improving health care quality and productivity, the development and adoption of new medical technologies, financial incentives in health care, the new role of patients as consumers in health care, the appropriate ownership and organizational structure of hospitals and other health care providers, and the management of professional health care staffs. We expect students completing this track to find jobs in academic and research institutions that have an interest in the impact of management on health care. These institutions would include business schools, as well as medical schools, schools of public health, and schools of public policy.
Medical Sociology (Professor Peter V. Marsden, Chair). In this concentration, students will learn about, and contribute to knowledge in, several research areas that are extremely important to health policy, including the study of professions and professional behavior, the structure of health care organizations and systems, the impact of organizational and professional change on the structure of medical work, organizational improvement programs and their evaluation, the diffusion of innovations across providers and organizations, and the behavior of patients and consumers including consumer evaluations of health care quality and patient perspectives on the process and outcomes of care.
Political Analysis (Professor Robert J. Blendon, Chair). This concentration is intended for students who wish to do research on the relationship between politics and health policy. Students will study theories of individual opinion formation, voting behavior, legislative organization, and interest group formation. In addition, students will examine the role of public opinion, interest groups, the media, and institutions in influencing health policy outcomes. The research methodologies most utilized in this track include survey research methods and quantitative statistical methods appropriate for large-scale databases. Graduates of this concentration will likely teach and do research on the politics of health care and will be involved with government, professional, and consumer groups on research projects related to the politics of public policy in the public health and health services fields.
Applications: Prospective students should visit the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences website at www.gsas.harvard.edu to apply online or to request an application. Important additional information on financial aid and other aspects of the PhD Program in Health Policy is available from Joan P. Curhan, Director, PhD Program in Health Policy (joan_curhan@harvard.edu) and Deborah Whitney, Associate Director, PhD Program in Health Policy (deborah_whitney@harvard.edu). Website: www.fas.harvard.edu/~healthpl.
Health Policy Courses
Health Policy 2000. Core Course in Health Policy
Catalog Number: 4522
Richard G. Frank (Medical School), Joseph P. Newhouse (Medical School), and Alan M. Zaslavsky (Medical School)
Full course (indivisible). Tu., Th., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 18
Topics include the financing and organization of health care, public health, political analysis, medical manpower, health law and ethics, technology assessment, prevention, mental health, long-term care, and quality of care.
Note: Required for doctoral candidates in Health Policy and open to others by permission of instructor. Offered jointly with the Kennedy School as HCP-597 and HCP-598 and with the School of Public Health as HPM 246.
*Health Policy 3000. Doctoral Dissertation Research
Catalog Number: 8422
Members of the Committee
Dissertation research.
*Health Policy 3002. Graduate Reading Course: Mental Health Policy
Catalog Number: 3528
Richard G. Frank (Medical School) 1371
Participants discuss research on the politics surrounding health policy and examine how to apply existing work and methodological approaches to their own work.
*Health Policy 3010. First-Year Graduate Reading Course: Ethics
Catalog Number: 9241
Norman Daniels (Public Health) 4722
This course examines issues in ethics and health policy, including a basic account of justice and health; ethical critique of maximization methodologies, including cost-effectiveness analysis; individual and social responsibility for health; and other topics.
*Health Policy 3015. Second-Year Graduate Reading Course: Ethics - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 4380
Norman Daniels (Public Health) 4722
Student-led course reviews basic issues in ethics, political philosophy, and their bearing on health policy and is important preparation for the qualifying examinations.
[*Health Policy 3020. Graduate Reading Course: Political Analysis]
Catalog Number: 3781
Robert J. Blendon (Public Health, Kennedy School) 2712
Participants present their own ongoing research on the politics surrounding health policy and discuss recent research drawn from various methodological approaches. Graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars are welcome to present research at all stages.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09.
*Health Policy 3030. Graduate Reading Course: Medical Sociology
Catalog Number: 1826
Peter V. Marsden 1797 and Thomas G. McGuire (Medical School) 4723
*Health Policy 3040hf. Research Seminar in Health Policy
Catalog Number: 8870
B. Katherine Swartz (Public Health) 2461
Half course (throughout the year). Hours to be arranged.
*Health Policy 3060. Graduate Reading Course: Decision Sciences
Catalog Number: 2133
Milton C. Weinstein (Medical School) 3043 (on leave 2008-09)
*Health Policy 3070. Graduate Reading Course: Economics
Catalog Number: 7439
Joseph P. Newhouse (Medical School) 2425
*Health Policy 3080. Graduate Reading Course: Evaluative Science and Statistics
Catalog Number: 9516
Alyce S. Adams (Medical School) 3926, Stephen B. Soumerai (Medical School) 1906, and Alan M. Zaslavsky (Medical School) 1927
*Health Policy 3090. Graduate Reading Course: Management
Catalog Number: 2492
Amy C. Edmondson (Business School) 4613 and Robert S. Huckman (Business School) 5234
Courses of Interest
Economics 2460. Health Economics Workshop
*Economics 3460chf. Research in Health Economics
Extra-Departmental Courses 186. Introduction to Health Care Policy
*Extra-Departmental Courses 187. The Quality of Health Care in America