Take My SNHU MPH Classes

The six courses SNHU's MPH page lists are all covered.

PHE 500 Principles of Public Health opens the degree with the core functions, the essential services, how agencies at each level of government divide the work, and a history running from John Snow's Broad Street pump to the COVID-19 response.

PHE 505 Research Methods in Public Health teaches how evidence is produced: research questions, quantitative and qualitative designs, sampling, measurement, validity, ethics and institutional review, and how to read and critique a published study.

IHP 515 Population-Based Epidemiology carries the quantitative load. Students calculate incidence, prevalence and mortality rates, age-adjust them, compute relative risks, odds ratios and attributable risk, compare cohort, case-control and cross-sectional designs, and judge bias, confounding and causation using criteria such as Bradford Hill's.

PHE 540 Principles of Environmental Health covers air and water quality, food safety, toxicology and risk assessment, climate and heat, built environments, occupational exposure and environmental justice, with cases such as the Flint water crisis.

PHE 610 Health Policy and Management covers how policy is made and analyzed, the roles of Medicaid, Medicare and public health funding streams, and the management of public health organizations: budgets, workforce, performance management and accreditation through the Public Health Accreditation Board.

HIM 500 Healthcare Informatics covers data systems that public health depends on, from electronic health records and immunization registries to syndromic surveillance and electronic case reporting.

Each course has its own pages here, linked from the table below.

Planning starts with your MPH audit, the number of courses you take per 10-week term and the public health setting you know: a local health department, a hospital, a school system, a nonprofit or a state agency.

Courses are assigned by discipline. A state epidemiologist takes IHP 515 and its rate calculations; an environmental health scientist who has investigated lead and drinking water complaints takes PHE 540; a public health policy analyst takes PHE 610; a health services researcher takes PHE 505; a surveillance informatics lead takes HIM 500; a former local health director takes PHE 500.

One public health problem can carry across the courses. Suppose you choose rising heat-related illness among outdoor workers in a southern county. PHE 500 can place it within the essential services, IHP 515 can analyze emergency department visit rates by age and month, PHE 540 can assess the exposure and propose controls, PHE 505 can design a study of a heat safety ordinance and PHE 610 can analyze the policy options and their cost. Instructors then see a student who follows a problem from data to policy.

Inside each term, the weekly post is written before the week opens, problem sets and papers arrive several days early and a short review page precedes any timed quiz.

When one course closes, the next specialist receives a note on your problem, data sources and voice.

Students who prefer a different thread, such as overdose deaths, childhood lead or adolescent vaping, can choose it instead; the same approach applies.

The MPH bench is drawn from public health practice and research: a state epidemiologist who has led foodborne and respiratory outbreak investigations, an environmental health scientist who has worked lead poisoning and private well cases, a policy analyst who has written fiscal notes for a state legislature, a health services researcher, an informatics lead who built syndromic surveillance dashboards, and a former local health director who led a department through PHAB accreditation.

Most hold an MPH, a DrPH or a PhD, and several hold CPH certification.

Their work reads like a health department memo or a peer-reviewed methods section, depending on the assignment.

Every deliverable is checked by a second specialist, and every rate, ratio and adjusted figure is recalculated before it reaches you.

Epidemiology is the first barrier for many MPH students. IHP 515 expects correct denominators, direct and indirect age adjustment, measures of association with confidence intervals and careful judgment about bias and confounding, and an early mistake in a problem set spreads to every later answer.

Research methods are the second. PHE 505 asks students to design studies, choose samples and measures and defend validity, which is a different skill from reading research.

Environmental health is the third. PHE 540 draws on chemistry, toxicology and exposure science that many students last met in an undergraduate lab, if at all.

Policy writing is the fourth. PHE 610 wants each option scored, not argued from preference.

Most MPH students also work full time in public health or health care, where an outbreak, a grant deadline or a budget hearing can swallow a week of a 10-week term.

IHP 515 and PHE 505 carry the most graded work, PHE 540 and PHE 610 sit in the middle and PHE 500 and HIM 500 are usually lighter.

Choose all six or a subset. A nurse might keep PHE 500 and hand over IHP 515 and PHE 505; a data analyst might keep IHP 515 and hand over PHE 540 and PHE 610.

Early syllabi let every week be planned before it opens. A course already under way is priced for what remains.

Timed quizzes and exams, proctored tests, any applied practice or field hours and anything involving identifiable health data stay with you. A copy of your MPH audit helps the quote.