VCU College of Health Professions

ALHP 701. Health Services Delivery Systems. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 credits. Examines the structure and function of the U.S. health-care delivery system, the concepts and processes of health and illness, the institutional and individual providers of health services and related theory. Focuses on interdisciplinary care. Emphasizes meeting the unique needs of ethnically and culturally diverse populations.

ALHP 702. Finance and Economic Theory for Health Care. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 credits. Focuses on foundational concepts of micro-economic theory and their application in analyzing health care; understanding the structure and dynamics of health-care markets; and on monitoring and controlling the allocation of resources within health organizations. Emphasizes each of the health-care disciplines and how finance and economics affect the practice of delivery and evaluation.

ALHP 708. Health Science Ethics. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Applies the principles of biomedical and health-care ethics to develop a more informed understanding of ethical decision making in the formulation of health-care policy as well as within the clinical environment. Focuses on utilizing and searching biomedical ethics literature, current issues in biomedical ethics, the discipline and process of ethical reflection and case consultation.

ALHP 712. Instructional Design and Evaluation for Health Sciences. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Examines various aspects of curriculum development, including instructional design and use of multimedia technology for teacher-learner communication and learner growth and development pertinent to doctoral education. Covers relevant learning theories in higher education and implications on curriculum design. Requires students to develop a Web-based interactive, multimedia course.

ALHP 716. Grant Writing for Health Science Research. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Examines fundamentals of allied health grant writing and proposal preparation in the health related sciences, including funding source determination, responding to an RFP, basic elements of a proposal, proposal review procedures and allocation processes. Requires development of a complete proposal and critique of existing proposals.

ALHP 760. Descriptive and Univariate Statistical Methods for Health Sciences. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Examines basic concepts and techniques of statistical methods, enabling individuals to conduct scientific inquiry as well as critical appraisal of the scientific literature. Includes the collection and display of information, data analysis and statistical measures; variation, sampling and sampling distributions; point estimation, confidence intervals and tests of hypotheses for one- and two-sample problems; principles of one-factor experimental design, one-way analysis of variance and multiple comparisons; and correlation and regression analysis.

ALHP 761. Health Science Research Design I. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Covers the design of experimental and quasi-experimental studies in the health care field. Emphasizes issues related to measurement, validity of designs, sampling and data collection. Focuses on the logic of causal inference, including formulation of testable hypotheses, and the design, methods and measures that facilitate research.

ALHP 762. Multivariate Statistical Methods for Health Sciences. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Examines multivariate statistical analysis and evaluation research methods with application to health related science research. Emphasizes data reduction techniques, factor analysis, principle components, discriminant analysis and logistic regression to analyze data in the health field.

ALHP 763. Health Science Research Design II. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Prerequisites: ALHP 760, ALHP 761 and ALHP 762. Prepares students to design, implement and interpret studies that evaluate the outcome and effectiveness of health services delivery. Emphasizes identification of emerging trends in health related sciences research, identification of meaningful research questions based on existing information and the use of primary and secondary data to assess outcomes.

ALHP 765. Data Management for Health Science Research. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Enrollment is restricted to students in the Ph.D. in Health Related Sciences program or with permission from the program director. This course provides an introduction to the management, cleaning, transformation and visualization of data for use in health sciences research. Within the context of this course students will become familiar with how to use multiple statistical software packages for data management. Emphasis will be placed on organizing and naming data files, data cleaning, performing basic data transformations, transferring data across software platforms, graphing data, testing assumptions, manipulating data in preparation for data analysis, and documenting processes for reproducibility.

ALHP 781. Doctoral Seminar. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 seminar hours. 3 credits. Enrollment is restricted to students with permission of the instructor. The student's desired topic of study must be identified and approved prior to enrollment. Studies specific topics in the area of the student's specialty track.

ALHP 792. Independent Study. 1-6 Hours.

Semester course; 1-6 credits. May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Offers special individual study or research leading toward investigation in specialty track. Conducted under the guidance of a faculty adviser.

ALHP 793. Research Practicum. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 credits. Offers supervised investigation of selected problems in the area of the student's specialty track. Includes conducting and analyzing field research.

ALHP 795. Teaching Practicum. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 practicum hours. 3 credits. Enrollment is restricted to students in the Ph.D. in Health Related Science Program with permission from their adviser or the program director. Offers students the opportunity to gain supervised practical experience related to role of academic educator. Includes applied skills of instruction, reflection and evaluation of student learning outcomes. Conducted under the guidance of a faculty adviser.

ALHP 890. Dissertation Seminar. 3 Hours.

Semester course; 3 credits. Deals with general purpose, content and functions of the dissertation process related to the student's specialty track. Leads to the preparation of dissertation proposal.

ALHP 899. Dissertation Research. 1-9 Hours.

Semester course; variable hours. Variable credit. Minimum of 9 semester hours required for Ph.D. Prerequisites: Completion of required course work and comprehensive examination. Covers dissertation research under the direction of a faculty adviser.