• General Information
• Minors
• Faculty
• Faculty Awards
• Student Publishing and Awards
• Student Jobs
• Financial Support
• Research Environment
• Graduation Requirements

Also see our Guidelines and Procedures Manual for more information.

General Information

• Decision Sciences
• Economics
• Financial Management
• Health Politics and Policy
• Quality and Access
• Sociology and Organizational Studies
 

Faculty

HPM faculty are known nationally and internationally for their research. Faculty members bring in many research grants, and publish widely. They also are called upon frequently to serve on prestigious national and international commissions, and to testify before Congress.  In addition to their dedication to scholarly research, all faculty members are committed to excellence in teaching. This commitment has been recognized by numerous teaching awards and other accolades from current students and alumni.

Several members of the Health Policy and Management Department faculty have won prestigious awards:

• Two members of our faculty have won the prestigious John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators from the Association of University Programs in Health Administration - Bryan Weiner and Rebecca Wells.
• R.Gary Rozier won the Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Public Health Dentistry.
• Andrea K. Biddle won the Mark S. Ehrenreich Prize in Healthcare Ethics.
• In 2002, Morris Weinberger received the Vision Award for Groundbreaking Research in Chronic Illness Care from the Improving Chronic Illness Care Program.
• In 2003, Morris Weinberger received the Under Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
• In 2005 Morris Weinberger won the 2005 John M. Eisenberg Excellence in Mentorship Award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) the health services research arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
• Bryan Weiner and PhD student Halle Amick had their article "Conceptualization and Measurement of Organizational Readiness for Change: A Review of the Literature in Health Services Research and Other Fields" selected as the best Medical Care Research and Review article of 2008.
• Bill Zelman received the School's highest recognition in April 2011 with the Bernard G. Greenberg Alumni Endowment Award
• John Paul received one of five UNC-CH-wide distinguished teaching awards for post-baccalaureate instruction.
• Sue Hobbs was selected for the inaugural Innovation + Inspiration Awards for faculty and staff members.
• Bill Zelman was chosen for the 2010 John E. Larsh Award for Mentorship.
• George Pink was appointed the Humana Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.
  
  

Student Publishing and Awards

One of the strengths of the PhD program is the students themselves. Our students have widely diverse backgrounds, coming from all parts of the United States and many foreign countries. What they share is an interest in research, and a willingness to help each other succeed in graduate school. The student offices, with computers and Internet links, facilitate student interactions.

• Health Affairs
• Health Economics
• Health Services & Outcomes Research Methodology
• Health Services Research
• Inquiry
• Journal of the American Medical Association
• Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
• Journal of Health Economics
• Journal of Rural Health
• Medical Care
• Medicare Research and Review
• Milbank Quarterly
• Pharmacoeconomics
• Public Health Reports
• Social Science and Medicine
• Value in Health Care

• AcademyHealth awarded their prestigious Dissertation Award to Glen Mays (in 2000) and Courtney Harold Van Houtven (in 2001).
• In 2003, the International Health Economics Association awarded both John Bian and Zhou Yang Honorable Mention in the student paper competition.
• Anu Krishman won the student paper competition for the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research in 2003.
• Rachael L. DiSantostefano received honorable mention in the student paper competition for the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research in 2005.
• Sarah Birken received the best Graduate Student Poster in the Social Sciences and Humanities at UNC in 2009.
• Dio Kavalieratos was selected to serve as the student member on the American Journal of Public Health's (AJPH) editorial board, with the yearlong term starting in November 2011.
• Sarah Rutstein was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Kerr L. White and Edward Wagner Scholarship in Health Care Research in 2011.
  
  

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Student Jobs

Our graduates are placed in top academic, research, and government positions. More than half of recent graduates of the PhD program have taken academic jobs at universities across the United States, including:

• Harvard University
• Stanford University
• Duke University
• University of Chicago
• Brown University
  
• The Virginia Commonwealth University
• The University of Minnesota
• Tulane University
• Medical University of South Carolina
  
• UNC

• Department of Veterans Affairs
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
• The National Cancer Institute
• The World Health Organization

• GlaxoSmithKline
• Searle Pharmaceuticals
• Pfizer
• Amgen
• Merck Research Labs
• The Bayer Corporation
• Mathematica
• Family Health International
• RTI International

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Financial Support

Financial aid often determines where incoming students decide to pursue their studies. HPM typically grants PhD students full financial support (including stipend, tuition, and health insurance) for the first two years of study through department research and teaching assistantships, federal traineeships, and Graduate School awards. (This support is contingent upon satisfactory academic progress and sufficient funds). Our advanced students have been extremely successful winning pre-doctoral fellowships from UNC research centers and federally-funded dissertation awards. See HPM's Financial Aid Information. Notably, UNC has one of the lowest tuition rates among US graduate schools and a reasonable cost-of-living. Information on federal financial aid and student loan programs is available from the University of North Carolina Office of Scholarships & Student Aid.

Research Environment

The Department's intellectual and scholarly breadth, as well as its strong interdisciplinary ties to other curricula and programs within and without the university, encourages doctoral students to take full advantage of the extensive research facilities at UNC-Chapel Hill and at other major universities in North Carolina's Research Triangle. Opportunities abound for research collaboration.

UNC Research Centers are interdisciplinary centers on campus that promote research through grant support, computer help, office space, and federally-funded pre-doctoral traineeships. HPM faculty and students have affiliations with the Sheps Center for Health Services Research, Carolina Population Center, Lineberger Cancer Center, and the Institute on Aging. Several campus centers focus on global health issues.

Duke University and the Veterans Administration (VA) in Durham are less than 10 miles away, and North Carolina State University is in Raleigh. This proximity facilitates joint research education. All PhD students are allowed to take courses at Duke and North Carolina State University at no additional cost via inter-institutional registration. A free bus operates between UNC and Duke, which facilitates these interactions.

In addition, the Research Triangle, including Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, is one of the leading health research areas in the nation. Faculty and students frequently collaborate with researchers at RTI International, Family Health International, GlaxoSmithKline, Quintiles, Medical Review of North Carolina, and American Institutes for Research. The Triangle Health Economics Seminar draws faculty and students from UNC, Duke, RTI, North Carolina State, and UNC-Greensboro.

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Graduation Requirements

The following courses and other program work must be successfully completed in order to graduate from the PhD program:

Prerequisites

• BIOS 600 - Principles of Statistical Inference (3 credits)
• HPM 754 - Health Care in the United States:  Structure and Policy (4 credits)
• EPID 600 - Principles of Epidemiology (3 credits)
• HPM 496-055:  Math/Stata module (1 credit)
  

Heath Services Research/Research Methods (9 credits)

• HPM 870 - Doctoral Seminar on Health Services and Management (3 credits)
• HPM 885 - Methods in Health Services Research (3 credits)
• HPM 886 - Qualitative Research Methods (3 credits)

Analytical Methods (9 credits)

• HPM 881 - Linear Regression Models (3 credits)
• HPM 882 - Advanced Methodology in Health Policy Management (3 credits)
• HPM 883 - Analysis of Categorical Data (3 credits)

Minor Requirements (18 credits)

Decision Sciences and Quality of Care require 18 hours; other minor areas require 15 hours in the minor PLUS a policy elective. Specific courses vary with the students' interests.

Professional Development (7 credits)

• HPM 871 - Seminar in Teaching Health Policy and Management (1 credit)
• HPM 873 - Research Seminar in Health Policy and Management (2 total credits)
• HPM 874 - Advanced Research Seminar in Health Policy and Management (4 total credits)

Dissertation Hours

HPM 994 - Doctoral Dissertation Hours (Does not count towards 41 hours) (Variable). During the first semester following comprehensive examinations, students will take HPM 994 as a formal 3-hour course entitled, "Developing Proposal for Health Services and Policy Research." Subsequently, they will enroll in HPM 994 with their dissertation advisor hours.

Total Credit Hours - Minimum of 43 hours, not including HPM 994

Comprehensive Exam

Dissertation Proposal Defense

Final Dissertation Defense

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