This for-credit transdisciplinary certificate, offered by the Temple University College of Public Health and the Beasley School of Law in association with the Center for Public Health Law Research, is the first graduate-level certificate to provide fundamental training in public health law and legal epidemiology research methods.
The field of public health law research generates evidence that can inform policy initiatives in order to advance health and well-being and includes methods for data collection, such as policy surveillance — the systematic, scientific collection and analysis of significant public health policies.
The four courses in this 12-credit certificate are taught by faculty from the Temple University College of Public Health, the Beasley School of Law and staff at the Center for Public Health Law Research, which has built a theoretical foundation for the field, developed innovative research methods for policy evaluation, and is working on translational research in order to use evidence in improving public health practice.
As a student in the public health law certificate program, you will learn to
- conceptualize and design a public health law study,
- conduct a legal epidemiology study, evaluating the impacts of laws or policies under the mentorship of a graduate faculty member during an independent research project,
- demonstrate the integration of behavioral and organizational theory with a law or policy,
- describe the mechanism behind a law or policy,
- develop policy surveillance techniques for collecting and coding laws,
- learn to conduct statistical analysis, and
- systematically evaluate laws and policies on an individual level.