Over the past decade, health services research has evolved into a promising, mature field of applied research. The demand for Ph. D.-trained health services researchers has grown rapidly, and will continue to do so, as health policies evolve at the federal, state and local levels. Graduates of the Doctoral Program in Health Services Research at Saint Louis University will find equally strong levels of career opportunities conducting health research in academic settings, public health agencies, and in the private sector as health consultants, health system executives, epidemiologists, behavioral scientists, and outcome researchers. The Core Concentration provides students with the opportunity to specialize in one of the three Core Course Work areas and to tailor their training to their future career interests.
Students select four courses from the list of concentration courses below.
In addition, two courses are designated as free electives within each concentration and are selected from either the recommended elective list or from the other concentrations. Students are permitted to choose a traditional or non-traditional academic dissertation format. The traditional format involves the proposal, the research defense, and an oral defense. The body of the non-traditional format constitutes three thematic original studies where the student is the primary or second author. Two of the papers must be either published or accepted for publication in high quality peer-reviewed journals relevant to the research question.