Health Policy PhD

Impact population health at a systems level.

Health policy is an interdisciplinary field that examines the organization and financing of health systems and services; the impact of health policies on population health; and the economic, social and behavioral determinants of health. It involves the investigation of all systems that affect population health, not just the medical care system. The purview of health policy is global.

The mission of our program is to prepare students for research careers in health policy and health services research; teaching; and public service in university, governmental and public policy settings. This program is distinguished by its interdisciplinary application of the social and behavioral science disciplines to real world health issues. Graduates are prepared to play lead scientific roles in addressing the many challenges facing health care and public health systems in the United States and countries around the world.

Curriculum

Students must successfully complete a health services research readings and methods seminar (two semesters), five specialty field courses, three quantitative research methods courses, and three additional graduate elective courses.

The program includes three specialty fields:

Students have access to all of UC Berkeley’s disciplines and professional schools, in addition to UCSF faculty and research programs. This is a full-time program geared for careers in academia and research and students typically complete it in four to five years. Our program is administered by Berkeley Public Health and the doctoral degree is granted by UC Berkeley’s Graduate Division.

Graduates can achieve and demonstrate expertise in the following major academic outcomes:

Develop domain expertise in core works in health policy and the selected specialty field.
Understand central social science theoretical frameworks and debates shaping health policy.
Demonstrate substantive knowledge of the specialty field sufficient to design and teach graduate-level courses in that field.
Demonstrate the ability to conduct rigorous quantitative research.
Plan and conduct independent research using advanced research methods.
Demonstrate the mastery of academia and grant writing, conference presentation, IRB procedures and ethics in research.
Engage in intellectual exchange among students and faculty across the university to enhance interdisciplinary research and training.

Qualifications

A master’s degree is not a requirement for this program, however, entering students should have completed introductory coursework in statistics, microeconomics, epidemiology and public health. Students without master’s-level coursework in these areas are required to take relevant courses at UC Berkeley or otherwise demonstrate mastery of these areas.

Employment

Graduates are well-prepared to assume academic careers in research and teaching. Many of our graduates move directly to positions in academia, government or research organizations. Other graduates receive postdoctoral fellowships to continue specific training in their area of interest and research.

Admissions

To apply to the Health Policy PhD program, please complete the UC Berkeley Graduate Division admissions application. This program does not use the SOPHAS application.

Submissions of GRE scores are optional but strongly recommended for this program. Especially if you have no other evidence of quantitative, verbal, or analytical abilities in your application. If not submitting a score, competitive applicants will need to provide alternative evidence of strong quantitative capability and should speak to their analytical and quantitative preparation for the PhD program in their application based on past coursework (e.g. statistics, microeconomics, math) and/or professional experience.

Please submit a writing sample and provide a list of publications and/or presentations related to your academic or professional background (include the PubMed ID if applicable).

If your work is published as a website or part of it, please provide the URL. Your writing sample can be a written assignment, journal article, report, Op-Ed, commentary, conference abstract, or other publication. Please enter your most recent citation first.

This is a quantitatively-oriented health policy program. Prospective applicants primarily interested in qualitative methods are advised to explore related programs such as the UC Berkeley PhD in Social Welfare or Medical Anthropology, or the UCSF Sociology program. Prospective applicants instead primarily focused on computational methods should also consider related UC Berkeley PhD programs in Biostatistics or Computational Precision Health.

Admissions Statistics

10%

5-year average admissions acceptance rate

3.62

Average undergraduate GPA of admitted applicants

3.68

Average graduate GPA of admitted applicants

87%

Average Verbal GRE scores of admitted applicants

88%

Average Quantitative GRE scores of admitted applicants

Average annual applications

Average annual offers

Average annual accepts

Core Faculty

The core PhD program faculty members of the School of Public Health, the Haas School of Business, School of Social Welfare, the Goldman School of Public Policy, and the Departments of Economics, Sociology, and Political Science.

Adrian Aguilera, PhD

Associate Professor, Social Welfare

Stefano Bertozzi, MD, PhD

Professor, Health Policy and Management

Amanda Brewster, PhD, MSc

Associate Professor, Health Policy and Management

Timothy Brown, PhD

Associate Research Professor, Health Economics

Emmeline Chuang, PhD

Associate Professor, Social Welfare

Julianna Deardorff, PhD

Faculty Assistant to the Dean

William Dow, PhD

Professor, Health Policy and Management

Lia Fernald, PhD, MBA

Brian and Jennifer Maxwell Endowed Professor in Public Health, Community Health Sciences

Mark Fleming, PhD

Assistant Professor, Health and Social Behavior

Brent Fulton, PhD, MBA

Associate Research Professor, Health Economics and Policy

Paul J. Gertler, PhD

Li Ka Shing Professor of Economics, Haas School of Business

Jenny Guadamuz, PhD, MSPH

Assistant Professor, Health Policy & Management

Sean Darling-Hammond, PhD, JD, BA

Assistant Professor, Health and Social Behavior & Community Health Sciences

Ben Handel

Associate Professor, Economics

Ann Keller, PhD

Associate Professor, Community Health Sciences

Jonathan Kolstad

Associate Professor, Economic Analysis and Policy

Ambar La Forgia, PhD

Assistant Professor, Haas School of Business

Adam Leive

Assistant Professor, Public Policy

Cassondra Marshall, DrPH, MPH

Assistant Professor, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Program

Ziad Obermeyer, MD

Blue Cross of California Distinguished Associate Professor, Health Policy and Management

Emily Ozer, PhD

Professor, Community Health Sciences

James Robinson, PhD, MPH

Professor, Health Policy and Management

Hector Rodriguez, PhD, MPH

Professor, Health Policy and Management

Rebecca Staiger, PhD

Assistant Professor, Health Policy and Management

Health Policy Research Centers at UC Berkeley and UCSF

Health Policy PhD students have access to a wide range of resources at UC Berkeley and UCSF, including highly regarded research centers. Below are brief descriptions of a selected list of research centers most closely aligned with the Health Policy PhD program. These Centers include faculty from a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines who bring expertise in health services research and provide settings for intensive training and mentorship opportunities for trainees.

Expand list of research centers
- The Berkeley Center for Health Technology (BCHT), co-directed by Dr. James Robinson (Director) and Dr. Tim Brown (Associate Director), promotes the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare through research and education on the development, insurance coverage, payment, and appropriate use of medical technologies. The focus of BCHT is on biopharmaceuticals, implantable medical devices, insurance benefit design, and payment methods. Research initiatives include leadership roundtables, case studies of leading organizations, and econometric analyses of public and private data sources. BCHT helps stakeholders design a healthcare system that combines innovation and entrepreneurship with economic efficiency and social fairness.
- The UC Berkeley Nicholas C. Petris Center on Health Care Markets and Consumer Welfare, co-directed by Dr. Richard Scheffler (Director) and Dr. Brent Fulton (Associate Director), focuses on consumer protection, affordability and access to healthcare, especially for low and middle-income individuals. The Petris Center also focuses on and the role of information in consumer choice, and regulation and competition within healthcare markets. The research center is named after former California State Senator Nicholas Petris, who advocated strongly on behalf of California consumers for affordable, accessible, and quality healthcare.
- The UC Berkeley Center for Health Management and Policy Research (CHAMP) aspires to improve the performance of U.S. public health and health care systems through rigorous empirical research and by translating evidence into policy and practice to advance health equity and improve population health. Co-directed by Professor Amanda Brewster and Professor Hector Rodriguez, CHAMP conducts rigorous research studies and evaluations of U.S. health care and public health payment and policy reforms, delivery system change, and implementation of innovations, with a focus on assessing impacts on population health and health equity.
- The Laboratory for Systems Medicine, directed by Dr. Ziad Obermeyer, applies methods from machine learning, biostatistics, and econometrics to the complex world of medical diagnoses, interventions, and outcomes. The center translates large observational datasets into new ways to understand and improve the life and death decisions that providers and patients make every day, in the US and across the world.
- The Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA), directed by Professor William Dow, was founded in 1993 to promote interdisciplinary research on the economic and demographic aspects of aging. In response to the growing demand from government agencies, Congress, and academic researchers for timely, accessible, and practical information as well as basic research. At the central core of CEDA is a group of outstanding formal and mathematical and statistical demographers who apply their skills to a variety of research areas, including biodemography, demographic modeling and forecasting, and intergenerational transfers including fiscal accounting. This central core is enriched by other themes, notably psychological and behavioral economics with applications to economic and health-related behaviors.
- The UC Berkeley Opportunity Lab (O-Lab), co-directed by Professor Ben Handel and Professor Hilary Hoynes serves as the central research hub for Berkeley scholars conducting rigorous, data-driven research on social and economic inequality in the United States. Our network of faculty and graduate students work across disciplines and study a wide array of topics, from the role of childhood food security on long-term economic security to the disparate impacts of climate change on low-income communities.
- The UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital carries out innovative research to prevent and treat chronic disease in populations for whom social conditions often conspire to both promote various chronic diseases and make their management more challenging. Beyond the local communities it serves, CVP is nationally and internationally known for its research in health communication and health policy to reduce health disparities, with special expertise in the social determinants of health, including literacy, food policy, poverty, and minority status, with a focus on the clinical conditions of pre-diabetes, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. CVP is at the frontline of practice-based research on chronic diseases for the diverse and disadvantaged populations of San Francisco and the Bay Area. UCSF faculty mentors Drs. Margot Kushel, Courtney Lyles, and Urmimala Sarkar are core CVP faculty.
- The Healthforce Center at UCSF was founded in 1992 to help healthcare leaders and policymakers better understand the health workforce and develop successful strategies and policies. The Center’s dynamic leadership training programs have touched thousands of people across the entire healthcare ecosystem who continue to make significant and meaningful change in healthcare. UCSF Professor Janet Coffman and Professor Joanne Spetz are core faculty of the center.