MS - Health Informatics Concentration

The science of health informatics drives innovation-defining future approaches to information and knowledge management in biomedical research, clinical care, and public health. Health informatics (HI) comprises applied research and the practice of informatics across clinical and public health domains. Informatics researchers develop, introduce, and evaluate new biomedically motivated methods in areas as diverse as data mining, natural language or text processing, cognitive science, human-computer interaction, decision support, databases and algorithms for analyzing large amounts of data generated in public health, clinical research and genomics/proteomics.

The MS degree will provide well-rounded training in Health Informatics, with a balance of core courses from such areas as information sciences, clinical informatics, clinical research informatics, consumer health and population health informatics, data science and more broadly health policy, social and behavioral science, biostatistics and epidemiology. The length of study for the MS in HI is two academic years. First-year courses survey the field; the typical second-year courses are more technical and put greater emphasis on mastering the skills in health informatics. The degree also requires a capstone project in the second year.

Applicants should typically have an undergraduate degree with a focus in health, computer science or mathematics/statistics. Students with a master’s degree or other related degrees may be allowed to enroll in additional elective courses in lieu of required courses, if they can demonstrate prior proficiency in required courses.

The length of study for the MS in Health Informatics is two years. Part-time enrollment is not an option.

This program does not require General GRE scores.

All courses count as 1 credit unless otherwise noted.

MS Required Courses (10 course units)

• BIS 633 Population and Public Health Informatics
• BIS 634 Computational Methods for Informatics
• BIS 560/ CBB 740 Introduction to Health Informatics *BIS 560 is a prerequisite for BIS 685& 686
• BIS 550/CBB 750 Topics in Biomedical Informatics and Data Science
• EPH 508 (fall) Foundations of Epidemiology and Public Health or EPH 509 (spring) Fundamentals of Epidemiology
• EPH 608 Frontiers of Public Health*
• BIS 638 Clinical Database Management Systems and Ontologies
• BIS 562 Clinical Decision Support or BIS 640 User-Centered Design of Digital Health
• BIS 685 and BIS 686 Capstone in Health Informatics- 2 units *BIS 560 is a prerequisite for BIS 685& 686

Informatics, Statistics and Data Science Electives: Minimum of 4 of the following REQUIRED

• BIS 540 Fundamentals of Clinical Trials
• BIS 555 Machine Learning with Biomedical Data
• BIS 567 Bayesian Statistics
• BIS 568 Applied Machine Learning in Healthcare
• BIS 620 Data Science Software Systems
• BIS 621 Regression Models
• BIS 623 Advanced Regression Models
• BIS 628 Longitudinal and Multilevel Data Analysis
• BIS 630 Applied Survival Analysis
• BIS 662 Computational Statistics
• BIS 645/GENE 645/CB&B 647 Statistical Methods in Human Genetics
• BIS 691 Theory of Generalized Linear Models
• BIS 692/CB&B 645 Statistical Methods in Computational Biology
• CB&B 555 Unsupervised Learning for Big Data
• CB&B 567 Topics in Deep Learning: Methods and Biomedical Applications
• CB&B 663/CPSC 552/AMTH552 Deep Learning Theory and Applications
• CDE 534 Applied Analytic Methods in Epidemiology
• CDE/EHS 566 Causal Inference Methods in Public Health Research
• CPSC 540 Database Design and Implementation
• CPSC 546 Data and Information Visualization
• CPSC 564 Algorithms and their Societal Implications
• CPSC 577 Natural Language Processing
• CPSC 581 Introduction to Machine Learning
• CPSC 582 Current Topics in Applied Machine Learning
• CPSC 583 Deep Learning on Graph-Structured Data
• CPSC 670 Topics in Natural Language Processing
• EMD 533 Implementation Science
• EMD 553 Transmission Dynamic Models for Understanding Infectious Disease
• ENAS 529 Medical Device Design and Innovation
• ENAS 544 Medical Imaging
• EPH 510 Health Policy and Health Care Systems
• HPM 559 Big Data, Privacy, and Public Health Ethics
• HPM 560 Health Economics and U.S. Health Policy
• HPM 570 Cost-Effectiveness Analysis and Decision-Making
• HPM 573 Advanced Topics in Modeling Health Care Decisions
• IMED 625 Principles of Clinical Research
• MGT 525 Competitive Strategy
• MGT 534 Personal Leadership: Leading the Self Before Others
• MGT 612/ GLBL 6590/ ENV 632 Social Entrepreneurship Lab MGT 656 Managing Software Development
• S&DS 517 Applied Machine Learning and Causal Inference
• S&DS 530 Data Exploration and Analysis
• S&DS 562 Computational Tools for Data Science
• S&DS 563 Multivariate Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences
• S&DS 565 Introductory Machine Learning
• S&DS 583 Time Series with R/Python
• S&DS 584 Applied Graphical Models
• S&DS 610 Statistical Inference
• S&DS 663 Computational Methods for Data Science
• S&DS 664 Information Theory

*Students entering the program with an MPH or relevant graduate degree may be exempt from this requirement.

Please note, CDE 538 Soda Politics is not approved as an elective.

1. Select informatics methods appropriate for a given public health context
2. Compare the health information system structure and function across regional national and international settings
3. Assess population informatics needs, assets and capacities that affect communities’ health
4. Propose strategies to identify stakeholders and build coalitions and partnerships for influencing public health informatics
5. Communicate audience-appropriate public health content, both in writing and through oral presentation
6. Apply systems thinking tools to a public health informatics issue