Everything MPH students who matriculated prior to Fall 2026 need to complete their program.
Everything MPH students who matriculated prior to Fall 2026 need to complete their program.
This page outlines degree requirements and answers common questions about Brown’s MPH curriculum for classes expecting to graduate in Fall 2027 or earlier.
As our program evolves to meet the changing demands of public health, we remain committed to supporting our current students through graduation. This page outlines the specific degree requirements for your cohort and answers common questions about the recent curriculum changes.
Please note: You are bound by the requirements in the handbook from your year of matriculation. Do not refer to the new "Core Curriculum" pages intended for incoming students.
You must complete the core sequence as defined in your original degree audit:
Students must complete one of the following three analytic course sequences:
Who should take this sequence: Students who want to obtain the applied statistical skills necessary to answer public health questions using quantitative data. In addition to statistical principles, this sequence will focus on data collection, analysis, interpretation, and the presentation of results.
Who should take this sequence: Students in the Epidemiology concentration who want an in-depth treatment of statistical methods, their rationale and motivation, and a conceptual description of their mathematical justifications; students in the Epidemiology concentration who are interested in taking additional methods courses in biostatistics at the 2500 level.
Please note that PHP 2510 and 2511 have specific prerequisites set by the Biostatistics Department: students are required to have completed at least two college-level mathematics or statistics courses including at least one calculus course. Courses on algebra, trigonometry, or pre-calculus do not count towards this requirement.
Who should take this sequence: Students who want to focus on various interdisciplinary approaches to the analysis of textual data from interviews, focus groups, ethnography, and secondary and digital sources— including thematic analysis, grounded theory, phenomenology, discourse analysis, narrative analysis, and arts-based approaches.
(Students following the qualitative sequence must take PHP2060 and PHP2061. PHP2061 will count as an elective course or a concentration course, depending on the concentration.)
Please note: The schedule of courses indicated above is based on the calendar for full-time students. Part-time students should consult with MPH program staff about when to take the courses in their chosen sequence.
Students must complete one of the following courses:
Students must complete both of the following half credit courses:
Students must complete the following course:
For a complete list of required courses, approved electives and specific credit requirements for your track, please refer to the individual concentration webpages below. These pages serve as the primary resource for your specialized curriculum and contain the specific course numbers and sequencing relevant to your degree plan:
MPH students demonstrate their strengths in research, policy or program evaluation by completing an MPH Practicum and either a thesis project or a capstone course. Both your MPH practicum requirement and thesis or capstone requirement remains unchanged.
If you matriculated in Fall 2026 (or later), the information above does not apply to you; refer instead to the new MPH curriculum, below.