The Health and Behavioral Health concentration examines in detail the complex, changing landscape and infrastructure of the U.S. health care system and its political, social, economic and technical contexts.
The U.S. health system is complex in its structure, processes, and outcomes. This trillion-dollar industry is the largest service industry in the nation, and is charged with the task of health promotion and prevention, and the diagnosis and treatment of ill health. Its knowledge base and technology expand at an exponential rate. The changes now redefining health care include: the continuing evolution of managed care, the concentration of provider institutions and insurers into fewer large competitors, the growing uninsured population, increasing concern with racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in health, increasing evidence for and awareness of the implications of behavior and lifestyle on health, and a search for lower-cost alternatives. In this environment, skilled health care managers, researchers, and educators who also have training in policy analysis are at a premium.
Scope
In the Health and Behavioral Health concentration, we examine the U.S. health care system and its political, social, economic, and technical contexts. We focus on topics such as factors in the causation of ill health, the structure and processes of health care organizations and service delivery systems, approaches to financing health care, the delivery of substance abuse and mental health services, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities, and health care and its role in social change.
Support for doctoral training is available through fellowships provided by the National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). These and other opportunities for students to participate in research projects are available through fellowships and research conducted at the Schneider Institutes for Health Policy (SIHP). Additional funding is available through other Heller School fellowships and awards. The SIHP website discusses in detail the NIAAA and AHRQ programs, which are part of SIHP's Institute for Behavioral Health.
The Schneider Institutes for Health Policy
The concentration draws upon the presence of SIHP, which includes the Institute on Healthcare Systems as well as the Institute for Behavioral Health. The Schneider Institutes conduct more than two-thirds of the outside-funded research at the Heller School and are the largest research institute within Brandeis University. SIHP staff includes over 70 researchers, and technical assistance experts with backgrounds in economics, public policy, public health, sociology, political science, psychology, medicine, nursing, health administration, finance, operations, and business management. SIHP research examines the health care system from a variety of perspectives, including questions of access to and quality of care, how health care is financed, delivered, and utilized, and the cost of such care.
Researchers at SIHP are involved with the design and evaluation of innovative financing and health care service delivery strategies, as well as understanding the nexus between health, behavior and the health care system. Among the Institute's areas of research are studies of vulnerable populations, such as children and adolescents, the elderly, underserved racial/ethnic groups, and individuals with chronic illness, substance abuse, or mental health issues; technology; and international health. Health concentrators benefit from this research by directly participating in projects, learning from ongoing work through colloquia, seminars, and required coursework, and observing how SIHP's health services research translates into the world of solution-oriented practice.
SIHP provides a rich educational experience for graduate students in the health concentration. The Livingston Health Policy Library, located in the Heller School, provides an extensive collection of government documents and journals and serves as a resource to the Heller community. A full-time librarian/research associate manages the library. The library's publications include specialized topics in health care, long-term care, health care financing and management, service delivery, managed care, health care technology, and behavioral health care. Documents also are available on women's health, minority issues, and family policies. The library serves as a repository for documents on policies and programs at international, federal, state, and local levels.
Program of Study
The doctoral program provides a multidisciplinary curriculum focusing on the development and analysis of social policy initiatives and the acquisition of sophisticated research skills. The goal of the health concentration in the doctoral program is to prepare students to become independent researchers who can address health problems and apply science to health care service delivery and financing.
This program is grounded in the interdisciplinary application of sociological, economic, and political science theories to the analysis of health problems, and in the use of quantitative and qualitative methods of scientific inquiry to services and systems in the health sector. We focus on rigorous preparation of doctoral students for teaching and research careers in universities, governmental agencies, or other research settings devoted to health services research. We prepare students to have an in-depth understanding of the conceptual issues related to health services research and policy analysis. The final requirement is the successful defense of a dissertation presented to the Heller faculty. Recent dissertations include:
- Exploring the relative importance of practice characteristics on adoption of a quality improvement program in primary care
- Examining health-related quality-of-life issues for dialysis patients
- Studying the factors affecting the adoption of naltrexone for the treatment of alcoholism
- Developing measures of cultural competence for quality assurance by public payers
- Analyzing the cost-effectiveness of substance abuse treatment for pregnant women
