Applied Biostatistics/Epidemiology (MS)

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Return to: Keck School of Medicine of USC

The department encourages applicants with undergraduate degrees in allied health, pharmacology, public health, medicine, biological and clinical sciences or other related fields. Undergraduate preparation should have included applied statistics, college algebra, an introductory course in calculus and basic computer programming. Applicants should also meet the minimum requirements for admission to the Graduate School. Demonstrated proficiency in the English language is essential. With approval of the Graduate School, applicants not meeting these requirements may be conditionally admitted contingent upon maintaining a GPA of 3.0 for the first 12 units of graduate study.

Course Requirements

General requirements include at least 38 units of required courses as follows: 25 units of core courses and at least 9 units of elective courses. In addition, each student must register for four units of PM 594a Master’s Thesis , PM 594b Master’s Thesis and write a master’s thesis.

Core Courses (25 Units)

PM 510L Principles of Biostatistics Units: 4
PM 511aL Data Analysis Units: 4
PM 512 Principles of Epidemiology Units: 4
PM 517a Research Methods in Epidemiology Units: 3
PM 518a Statistical Methods for Epidemiological Studies I, II Units: 3
PM 523 Design of Clinical Studies Units: 3
PM 527 Epidemiology of Infectious Disease Units: 4

Electives (At Least 9 Units)

PM 511bL Data Analysis Units: 4
PM 511cL Data Analysis Units: 4
PM 515 Multivariate Statistics in Health Behavior Research Units: 4
PM 516a Statistical Problem Solving Units: 1
PM 516b Statistical Problem Solving Units: 1
PM 517b Research Methods in Epidemiology Units: 3
PM 529 Environmental Health: An Epidemiological Approach Units: 4
PM 530 Biological Basis of Disease Units: 4, 2 years
PM 533 Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Units: 3
PM 551 Statistical Methods in Genome-Wide Association Studies Units: 3
PM 560 Statistical Programming With R Units: 2
PM 569 Spatial Statistics Units: 3
PM 574 Programming In Modern Statistical Software Units: 2
PM 575 Statistical Methods in Environmental Epidemiology Units: 3
PM 579 Statistical Analysis of High-Dimensional Data Units: 4
PM 588 The Practice of Epidemiology Units: 4
PM 590 Directed Research Units: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
PM 611 Advanced Topics in Epidemiology Units: 3

Thesis (4 Units)

PM 594a Master’s Thesis Units: 2
PM 594b Master’s Thesis Units: 2

Additional Requirements

Electives will be determined by the student’s needs and interests and will be approved by the student’s adviser. When appropriate, courses not listed above may be chosen with approval of the student’s adviser. Sufficient familiarity in computer languages to operate major software packages for data management and analysis is required.

Thesis Requirement

A master’s thesis is required of all students. This thesis consists of a research project approved by the faculty and chosen from problems encountered within the department, in other departments of the Keck School of Medicinen or university or elsewhere in the community.