<p> Tufts University MPH Program Competency Domains, Core Competencies, & Learning Objectives </p><p>The Tufts MPH Program uses a set of competency domains derived from those used by the ASPH MPH Core Competency Project. Within each domain category are listed (in bold), a set of competencies that describe in conceptual terms what a Tufts MPH graduate can do. Most competencies have listed below them a set of learning objectives which describe in greater detail what a Tufts MPH student is taught. Each learning objective has at least one place in the Tufts MPH curriculum where it is taught and evaluated.</p><p>Pages</p><p>Competency Domains</p><p>Core Subject Competencies Epidemiology and Biostatistics 1 - 2 Health Policy 3 Health Organization and Systems Management 4</p><p>Social & Behavioral Sciences 5 Environmentaland Occupational Health Sciences and Policy 6 Biology 7</p><p>Cross-cutting Competencies Planning and Evaluation 8 Professionalism and Ethics 10 Public Health Practice 11 Communication 12 Diversity 12 Leadership and Advocacy 14</p><p>Epidemiology and Biostatistics</p><p>Describe and present population health problems using available data and appropriate epidemiologic and biostatistical concepts.</p><p>Calculate, interpret, and understand appropriate measures of disease occurrence and association</p><p>Use appropriate epidemiologic measures to characterize the health status of a population or community</p><p>1 Identify potential sources of bias and confounding, and the role of chance in measurement of association.</p><p>Understand and critique public health literature.</p><p>Describe basic features, strengths and weaknesses of study designs.</p><p>Articulate the potential roles of bias, confounding and chance as possible explanations for findings.</p><p>Recognize the category of data under scrutiny and identify the appropriate statistical tests for analysis of such data</p><p>Know appropriate applications and limitations of common statistical tests</p><p>Make appropriate inferences from available data.</p><p>Extract the important contextual information that is contained in a data set.</p><p>Accurately assess risk as demonstrated by data</p><p>Accurately assess the degree and extent to which causality may or may not be inferred based on available studies and data.</p><p>Propose and frame a research question related to population health.</p><p>Identify appropriate methods and study designs for answering a specific research question.</p><p>Identify appropriate methods and study designs for answering a specific research question.</p><p>Identify methods that can be used to answer a research question, articulating strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. </p><p>Minimize the potential roles of bias and confounding in a study design</p><p>Incorporate needs for proper data collection, storage, and dissemination processes in study design</p><p>Use accepted models of protocol design for research, quality improvement and other public health activities</p><p>Apply concepts of validity and reliability to assessing and developing variables and instruments for use in research.</p><p>2 3 Health Policy</p><p>Describe and analyze population health systems, including their stakeholders, components, and attributes.</p><p>Understand the role of various stakeholders in the health services and public health system</p><p>Analyze the features of a health system, including the roles of cost, quality, access, equity and their interplay, in contributing to the health status of a population</p><p>Identify and describe the components of the public health and health services infrastructures in the United States and in other countries.</p><p>Understand the role of markets and government in allocating health care resources from an efficiency and equity perspective.</p><p>Understand the role of societal sectors external to formal health care and public health structures, in contributing to health and the potential for healthy public policy.</p><p>Understand the role of societal structures, including culture, economic systems, race, ethnicity and class, in the distribution of health and health inequities.</p><p>Identify, propose and analyze policy interventions to improve population health in a variety of societal levels and sectors</p><p>Understand the legal and regulatory structures of the federal, state and local government as they affect public health.</p><p>Differentiate among law, policy, rules and regulations; and among different levels at which policy can operate, including federal, state, local, municipal, and organizational levels.</p><p>Write a policy brief, articulating a rationale for a policy and describing intended and potential unintended consequences.</p><p>Identify ways in which a health system is not working and leverage points in that system to create change.</p><p>Conduct comparative analyses across nations and use such analysis to consider improvements within specific systems.</p><p>Apply basic financial and economic principles to the analysis of health policy and systems</p><p>4 Health Organization and Systems Management</p><p>Describe the internal and external environment and issues that affect organizational behavior.</p><p>Use tools developed for strategic and operational planning</p><p>Use organizational mission, structure, policies and actions to identify appropriate and effective means of working in or with an organization to accomplish public health goals.</p><p>Apply quality improvement principles and tools to evaluate organizational processes and outputs.</p><p>Analyze and use basic financial tools used in organizational and program management.</p><p>Develop a project budget and justification.</p><p>Prepare and interpret an organizational budget and variances.</p><p>Interpret basic financial statements about an organization, including revenue and expense statements, balance sheets, statements of cash flow.</p><p>5 Social and Behavioral Sciences</p><p>Apply the socio-ecological model to understand and improve public health</p><p>Propose and critique interventions designed to address health problems at all levels of the social ecological model</p><p>Understand the determinants of health and health behaviors from a social-ecological perspective including how individual and contextual factors impact health communications and interventions, including:</p><p> o Literacy o Gender o History o Poverty o Culture o Community o Race o Structural factors</p><p>Apply theoretical models of health behavior and health communication to understand and evaluate public health problems, and to design, implement and evaluate public health interventions.</p><p>Identify known and potential determinants of health status and health-related behaviors, both generally and for specific diseases of public health import</p><p>Demonstrate basic skills required to respond to an RFP, including: o Problem analysis/literature review o Writing goals and objectives o Program planning drawing on theory o Logic models o Evaluation (formative, process, outcome) o Budgeting</p><p>Describe and discuss several of the basic health behavior theories and models and explain how they can be used to explain behavior and inform intervention and communication strategies. Theories include: o Health Belief Model o Theory of Reasoned Action/Planned Behavior o Transtheoretical Model o Social Learning Theory o Diffusion of Innovation</p><p>Develop and describe communication strategies, messages, and vehicles appropriate for diverse audiences, ranging from individuals to policymakers</p><p>Conduct formative research to inform program design.</p><p>6 7 Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Policy</p><p>Describe environmental and occupational influences on public health.</p><p>Identify how the environmental quality of air, water, and land contributes to population health in both developed and developing nations</p><p>Analyze how both natural and built environments impact health.</p><p>Understand how occupational environments and job design contribute to health problems.</p><p>Identify occupational and environmental hazards, including chemical, physical, biological, and psychosocial hazards.</p><p>Apply a critical thinking and systems approach to the analysis of environmental and occupational determinants of disease and injury.</p><p>Understand and identify the ideologic and conceptual frameworks implicit in research and policy agendas related to environmental and occupational health.</p><p>Analyze how environmental factors impact lifestyles, biology, attitudes, perceptions, behaviors and choices that ultimately impact health.</p><p>Apply concepts of sustainability and ecological systems to address public health issues.</p><p>Design, critique, and evaluate interventions directed at environmental and occupational disease and injury</p><p>Identify the contributions of technical, political, and policy frameworks for addressing environmental and occupational illness and injury.</p><p>Describe and critique regulatory frameworks for protection of human health in the environment and in occupational settings.</p><p>Describe social, political and economic obstacles to the amelioration of workplace and environmentally mediated illness and injury and strategies to overcome them</p><p>Recognize agents of injury and use the host-environment-agent framework to assess risks and risk reduction strategies</p><p>Use a systems approach to identify opportunities for change.</p><p>8 Biology</p><p>Demonstrate ability to acquire and understand the critical biological factors that influence public health efforts related to any disease.</p><p>Identify credible resources on biological science.</p><p>Comprehend basic biological materials on topics ranging from the cellular to the population levels relevant to public health.</p><p>Analyze and synthesize biological information to generate and strengthen the rationale for public health ideas and interventions.</p><p>9</p><p>Planning and Evaluation</p><p>Use data to improve population health interventions.</p><p>Judge the quality and appropriateness of data for use in decision-making related to public health activity</p><p>Understand the limits of various research methods and the need to balance rigor and practical limitations in public health field work.</p><p>Conduct formative research and use information gained from such research to design or improve public health work</p><p>Conceive, design, implement, monitor, and evaluate public health actions taken to improve the health of a population.</p><p>Describe a population health problem from a public health perspective</p><p>Identify a specific problem and model for how that problem will be addressed by a proposed project.</p><p>Conduct a literature review, identifying relevant literature and articulating what is and what is not known in relationship to a public health problem and a proposed intervention</p><p>Incorporate all stakeholder perspectives and values, including those of the population or community to be served, in the conception and design of public health actions.</p><p>Explicate a proposed public health intervention using a logic model.</p><p>Write a well designed plan for a public health intervention, using the framework of goals, objectives, activities, and evaluation.</p><p>Articulate a systematic approach for collecting, managing, analyzing and reporting information</p><p>Conduct project work in accordance with a plan.</p><p>Accurately evaluate project accomplishments and limitations.</p><p>Bring a project to closure, giving stakeholders clear understanding of what was accomplished and what work remains.</p><p>Revise or adapt an intervention proposal and plan in response to changing circumstances.</p><p>Conduct formative evaluation of a project</p><p>10 Identify and implement changes or corrections in a project plan and communicate such changes and rationale for them in an interim report</p><p>11 Professionalism and Ethics </p><p>Work effectively in a professional organization by adapting the content and process of one’s work to the organization’s mission, culture, organizational chart, and mechanisms for decision making.</p><p>Assess the internal environment of an organization, with attention to the organization’s mission, culture, organizational chart, and mechanisms for decision making.</p><p>Assess the external environment in which an organization functions, with attention to the strategic opportunities and threats presenting to the organization</p><p>Adapt work in response to the organizational context in which it is done.</p><p>Give and receive constructive feedback with all stakeholders.</p><p>Demonstrate efforts to use feedback for professional improvement.</p><p>Listen so others with speak; and speak so others will listen.</p><p>Be accountable and take responsibility for all actions and behaviors taken with respect to professional work.</p><p>Respect deadlines, demonstrate timeliness, follow directions, and display appropriate dress and manners</p><p>Communicate as needed and as requested by others with whom one works.</p><p>Honor commitments made </p><p>Exercise sound judgment and common sense in day to day matters related to professional work.</p><p>Utilize appropriate ethical, legal and administrative frameworks in safeguarding human subjects and community needs and concerns associated with project work.</p><p>Articulate the potential ethical problems associated with the collection of information related to human subjects</p><p>Articulate the difference between research and data collection for other purposes, and identify and pursue the appropriate process for institutional review of a defined set of activities</p><p>12 Public Health Practice</p><p>Find and negotiate public health work appropriate to one’s skills and strengths.</p><p>Contact, communicate and negotiate effectively with other professionals.</p><p>Describe the stakeholders of a public health issue in a local, regional, national or global level, and identify opportunities among those stakeholders for public health action.</p><p>Work effectively with multiple professional and non-professional stakeholders in a community setting.</p><p>Understand and respond constructively to various stakeholder perspectives.</p><p>Develop awareness of community history and dynamics.</p><p>Cooperate and coordinate with existing community partners.</p><p>Cultivate trust and establish mutually agreed to processes among various stakeholders.</p><p>13 Communication </p><p>Listen to, learn about, and understand differing perspectives on a public health issue from diverse populations and stakeholders.</p><p>Demonstrate respect for others and for differing perspectives in team and coalition activities. </p><p>Articulate how differing perspectives can create opportunity for constructive problem solving in addressing public health problems.</p><p>Use theory, evidence, and stakeholder input to communicate appropriately with diverse populations and stakeholders.</p><p>Develop messages for use in a public health action appropriate to diverse target audiences.</p><p>Select messaging strategies and appropriate tactics for delivering messages as part of a public health action.</p><p>Communicate effectively in writing and orally with professional and lay audiences.</p><p>Use a layperson’s terminology and clear language to explain terms and concepts in appropriate settings.</p><p>Write clearly and accurately in order to convey both technical and conceptual materials to intended audiences.</p><p>Demonstrate the ability to communicate one’s work in writing in a professional style and format.</p><p>Use epidemiologic and biostatistical terminology correctly in written and spoken presentations.</p><p>Present quantitative data in tables and graphs using the clearly understandable and generally accepted formats.</p><p>Demonstrate the ability to give a clear and compelling presentation, in a style suitable for presentation at a scientific meeting, with attention to the quality of the verbal, vocal, and non-verbal aspects of presentation.</p><p>Use audio-visual aids to enhance communication and presentation effectiveness.</p><p>14 Diversity</p><p>Understand how class, culture, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, sexual orientation and other aspects of identity and diversity affect health and health-related behaviors and attitudes.</p><p>Define health inequities and delineate how characteristics of identity and diversity, including but not limited to class, culture, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, and sexual orientation; increase risk of poorer health outcomes.</p><p>Articulate how formative research with diverse target audiences allows for more effective public health action. </p><p>Incorporate understanding of cultures, histories, beliefs and practices in designing and implementing public health actions.</p><p>In preparation for work with a community or population, conduct research and literature review to develop an understanding of that group’s cultures, beliefs, history and practices.</p><p>Use formative research about specific target audiences, including stakeholder analysis, and key informant input to inform the design and conduct of a public health action.</p><p>Work effectively with diverse populations and within diverse communities.</p><p>Conduct useful public health work in the context of a specific organizational and community context.</p><p>Treat all people with dignity and respect.</p><p>15 Leadership and Advocacy</p><p>Demonstrate the ability to work independently and in groups to foster positive change.</p><p>Design and conduct public health work that requires both independent analytic activity and the cooperation of others.</p><p>Make independent judgments to adjust and advance one’s work in the setting of barriers or setbacks</p><p>Use team and coalition strategies to advance ones work</p><p>Accurately assess one’s ability to create change, identifying and acting upon critical information and opportunities in a public health organization or system.</p><p>Use a contextual analysis to develop a public health action that is both acceptable to and has capacity to change an organization or system.</p><p>Use one or more collaborative strategies to advance public health work.</p><p>Take action to improve team and coalition effectiveness.</p><p>Use specific strategies to influence team or coalition dynamics so as to improve group communication, cooperation, use of diverse perspectives, or creative responses to conflict.</p><p>16</p>