• MA:  For candidates with a focus on practical, hands-on careers at the intersection of public health and informatics. This program can be completed on a full- or part-time basis over 18-36 months.
• PhD:  For candidates with desire to develop research expertise in public health informatics. Candidates should have completed their undergraduate work and had enough work experience in a public health or clinical setting to drive their passion for a career at the intersection of public health and informatics.
• Postdoctoral:  For individuals who wish to add informatics training to their prior doctoral work. Candidates should have a doctorate in public health or closely related field (e.g., DrPH), a health professional doctorate (e.g., MD, DDS, PharmD, or DNSc), or an MD/MPH and have an interest in obtaining public health informatics training. This program generally leads to a masters or PhD degree. A non-degree fellowship (a traditional post-doctoral training program) is also available for individuals who have earned doctoral degrees in biomedical informatics or a closely related field and who wish to seek additional specialized PHI training with a Columbia faculty member.

Table 1: Project Objectives, Training Activities, and Milestones

Computational and Mathematical Objectives: Students who have already satisfied these first two objectives through prior graduate training will not need to take further courses in these areas

Informatics Core: Two courses will be required of all students. Introduction to Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine, taught by Dr Shortliffe, is an overview of the field of biomedical informatics, combining perspectives from medicine, computer science and social science. The use of computers and information in health care and the biomedical sciences are examined, covering specific applications and general methods, current issues, capabilities and limitations of biomedical informatics. Theory and Methods of Biomedical Informatics is co-taught by numerous faculty in the department over two semesters. The course provides a survey of the methods underlying the field of biomedical informatics and explores techniques in mathematics, logic, decision science, computer science, engineering, cognitive science, management science and epidemiology. Laboratory sessions allow the course to demonstrate the application of these methods to health care and biomedicine.

Public Health Core: The Public Health Core Functions that define public health in terms of assessment, policy development, and assurance have proven to be highly usefully in clarifying the fundamental, over-arching responsibilities of public health. ^[i] The Ten Essential Public Health Services is a more detailed and grounded delineation to describe services that public health carries out to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy. ^[ii] The Council on Linkages between Academia and Public Health Practice adopted Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals, which are built around the Ten Essential Public Health Services to implement them for public health education. ^[iii] The requirements in this public health informatics track draw upon these competencies to provide students with a basic level of knowledge and competencies regarding the public health system in the United States and an understanding of the fundamental concepts of population health. Four courses will be required (with an option to place out of those topics to which a student has previously been exposed). Principles of epidemiology, taught at the Mailman School of Public Health, covers the concepts, principles, and uses of epidemiology. Students study particular diseases to illustrate the descriptions of their distributions and courses, the analysis of their causes, and approaches to prevention and control. Environmental health sciences is an introduction to preventative health practices with an emphasis on environmental factors. Issues and Approaches in Health Policy and Management covers administrative problems and interventions that affect, and are affected by, all public health practitioners, as they seek to improve health care delivery, health care, and the health status of populations. Public Health Informatics, developed and taught by Dr. Kukafka, incorporates practice-based teaching that requires students to think critically about the development and employment of informatics innovation to problem-solve and reengineer strategies by which public health can carry out its core functions and essential services more effectively. Students work in interdisciplinary teams to write and present a proposal that describes and supports the public health problem they choose, depicts the innovative informatics solution that is proposed to improve the way current public health practice addresses the problem (prototype and architecture); provides a detailed implementation plan within a realistic timeframe, and presents a staged-evaluation design to measure an impact.

Specialized training in public health informatics topics: As a major part of training and to facilitate the scholarly investigation of public health informatics topics, students will be expected to engage in research in a public health topic under the direction of a faculty research advisor. This requirement is met for Master’s students by taking “Projects in Biomedical Informatics” under the direction of a faculty advisor. In the semester prior to the final semester, Master’s students are required to submit a brief written proposal for the project, clearly defining the scope, goals, timeline and deliverables. A brief written project report is expected at completion of the project, generally in the final semester. The postdoctoral student under direction of a faculty advisor will enroll in “Projects in Biomedical Informatics” for two years. In the semester prior to the final semester, all students are required to submit a brief written proposal for a research project, clearly defining the scope, goals, timeline and deliverables. A written project report will be expected at completion of the project, generally in the final semester. These reports are written as scientific papers and should be suitable for submission to a scholarly journal. PhD students, under direction of a faculty advisor, will enroll in Projects in Biomedical Informatics every semester for at least three and are required to complete a dissertation. Students may select a faculty research advisor from Public Health Informatics Faculty (or elsewhere in the university so long as they have at least one PH informatics faculty member on their committee and at least one member of the core faculty of the Department of Biomedical Informatics).

Research methodology and/or program evaluation: Requisite research skills will be obtained by enrolling in a research course (students select one depending on the focus of their research goals). Advanced students will select from electives. Emphasis is on the development of investigative questions, identification of methods to address these questions with data, methods for data analysis, and communication of results.

Colloquia: All students will be expected to attend the weekly Student Seminar (G4098) and Research Seminar (G4099). They will also give a presentation, generally once per year, in the student seminar.

On-site experience with governmental public health agencies: This practicum is a formal, supervised placement that will be required for both postdoctoral and PhD students. The student will devote no less than 280 hours in a planned, supervised and evaluated practicum that will usual occur during the second or third year of training. The practicum is intended to enable students to develop a systems view of the responsibilities and services provided by public health agencies, and how these agencies are organized to address their missions. The faculty advisor will supervise the placement, and an agency preceptor will closely mentor the student at the placement site. Placements will be project-specific and address a particular programmatic issue that should require the student to draw on the combination of skills, knowledge and interdisciplinary experiences acquired in the public health informatics specialization program.

Documentation will be required that indicates the agreement between the students, the faculty advisor and the placement-site preceptor on the details of the placement. This written agreement, or learning contract, is to describe and define the working relationship between the student and the host agency. The agreement is to explain the student’s learning objectives and interests, as well as the needs and opportunities of the host agency. It will be intended neither to be a legal contract nor a policy on individual and institutional liability mitigation, but rather a tool for communicating, monitoring, and evaluating the practicum. For students in the postdoctoral program, the practicum may substitute for the “Projects in Biomedical Informatics” requirement, providing that the experience is of sufficient duration, includes a research component, and is concluded with a formal final report.

Trainees will receive guidance from their advisor on how to custom-tailor their coursework based upon prior graduate training and experience. Table 2 shows which courses and training activities are required of all students regardless of prior background.

Table 2: Required Courses and Training Activities

^[1] Public Health Informatics is required, but students can request a waiver from the other public health core courses if they show proof of background, experience, or a comparable course. In some instances, instructors teaching the core public health courses may require the student to take a placement exam before a waiver is granted. Including these courses as core is to ensure that students coming from very different backgrounds obtain the necessary breadth to continue study and that students ready for advanced study will have the option to select from the list of more advanced courses.

^[i] Institute of Medicine (1988). Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health, Division of Health Care Services. The Future of Public Health. Washington, DC: National Academy Press

^[ii] Department of Health and Human Services (1994). Essential Public Health Functions. Available at http://www.health.gov/phfunctions/public.htm . Accessed August 15, 2003.

^[iii] http://www.trainingfinder.org/competencies/index.htm