DrPH EOH – Integrative Learning Experience (Dissertation)

Program Requirements: Prospectus

In accordance with CEPH accreditation criteria, all DrPH candidates are required to generate field-based products consistent with advanced practice designed to influence programs, policies, or systems addressing public health. The products must demonstrate synthesis of foundational and concentration competencies (CEPH, 10/16). The Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) for the DrPH is judged by the criteria set forth by CEPH and the ECU doctoral dissertation requirements.

In accordance with ECU policies, prior to initiating dissertation research, the candidate’s Dissertation Committee must approve a written prospectus and oral presentation of the proposed dissertation. Public announcement of the Prospectus Presentation must be made to the Department. Upon completion of the Prospectus Presentation, the Doctoral Prospectus Report Form is completed and returned to the Director of Public Health and Departmental Chair for signatures and a copy placed in the student’s departmental file. The Pre-Thesis or –Dissertation Research Approval Form is also completed and submitted to the Director of Doctor of Public Health who will then forward the results to the Dean of the Graduate School.

DrPH Dissertation Guidelines

DrPH students fulfill the Integrative Learning Experience through the completion of a dissertation. DrPH dissertations must meet the following criteria:

• Students must generate field-based products consistent with advanced practice that are designed to influence programs, policies or systems addressing public health.
• Students must demonstrate synthesis of a minimum of two (2) DrPH Foundational Competencies and three (3) DrPH major- specific competencies through the dissertation work and final products.

Students will be evaluated by the rubric included in Appendix D. However, these are not the only criteria by which students are assessed. The DrPH committee will provide a comprehensive assessment of the student’s dissertation proposal and final dissertation. Students should familiarize themselves with the criteria to ensure successful completion of the DrPH dissertation requirements.

Students are required to submit a copy of the DrPH ILE form (Appendix D) upon submission of the dissertation proposal to the DrPH Program Director along with other required documentation per the submission guidelines. Completion of this form is required for accreditation purposes.

Acceptable dissertation projects will be broadly defined to reflect the historic and current interests of ECU DrPH students. The dissertation will be problem or opportunity focused. The goal is to identify an important public health problem or opportunity and develop an appropriate solution, intervention or strategy. As such, the results might be targeted at public and/or private policy makers, policy influential, and/or program managers and corporate decision-makers with specific information to inform, improve, and revise existing programs or initiate new, needed, or especially effective programs. Examples of dissertation research approaches include but are not limited to: examination of the health status of a group and environmental/occupational public health concerns, evaluation or other critical assessment of an intervention or policy being promoted or implemented, analysis of management issues, analysis of environmental/occupational health policy or practice issues, assessment of community assets, transdisciplinary research, framing of public health problems, community based participatory research, epidemiologic studies, and methodological contributions in the context of environmental/occupational health.

Should the student and/or the student’s Dissertation Committee have any question as to whether the student’s research approach is appropriate for a problem or opportunity focused dissertation, the question should be forwarded to the DrPH Program Director for his/her opinion. If the approach is found to be an exception, a formal request for exception must be approved by the student’s Dissertation Committee and the DrPH Program Director.

Format of the Dissertation
The format of the dissertation will be one of three options: a standard dissertation, the three-paper option, or an alternate single dissertation format acceptable to the student’s Dissertation Committee.

Option 1. A standard dissertation will usually incorporate the following specified content:

Statement of the public health problem or opportunity and the resulting research question,
• Critical review of the scientific literature relevant to that problem or opportunity,
• Conceptual framework that includes the relevant social, scientific, economic, political,
environmental, human rights, administrative, and/or cultural context
• Description of the study design or data sources and analytic methods used to answer the research question.
• Analytic results and their implications for the problem or opportunity under study
• Recommendations based on the results of the study
• Strategy for implementing and evaluating the recommendations, taking into consideration the contextual factors identified in the conceptual framework

Option 2. The three-paper option format will include three articles of publishable quality along with (1) a separate introduction and (2) an integrative conclusions section. The three papers will be written in the format required by peer-reviewed journals identified by the student and approved by their Dissertation Committee. Dissertation Committees may require additional documentation to assess the student’s work (e.g., extended methods section). This additional work should be part of the integrating documents and not the individual articles which should be of publishable length and content. Exception may be sought to substitute an alternate product for one of the papers (e.g., DVD, website, or educational pamphlet). The exception process will include approvals by the student’s Dissertation Committee and the DrPH Program Chair.

Option 3. Alternate single dissertation formats (e.g., a book) are acceptable if approved by the student’s Dissertation Committee.

As shown below, the applied learning experience should include three learned public health foundational and two concentration specific competencies (listed in Appendix D

At the conclusion of the ILE, the student will synthesize the selected competencies and develop a high-quality written paper that outlines the project’s aims, introduction, background, methods, results, discussion and conclusion that explains the contribution to field of public health. (see DrPH, ILE Approval Form, Appendix D).

The candidate will present his/her dissertation research in an open forum. This will be followed by a closed defense of the candidate’s research with the Program Committee. The Dissertation Committee will recommend to the Program Director and the Departmental Chairperson to award or not award the degree with stated specifications. The Director of Doctor of Public Health will forward this recommendation to the Dean of the Graduate School.

Public announcement of the Dissertation Defense must be made to the university community. All arrangements for public announcements must be made through the Office of the Dean of Health Sciences. Announcements should be made via flyers and through the East Carolina University ANNOUNCE system with university-wide e-mail distribution. Students must comply with submission deadlines in order that the announcement of the defense appears at least two weeks prior to the defense. Public defense of the dissertation cannot occur without published announcements of the title, date, place, time and name of the defender.

Following successful oral defense of the dissertation, the Dissertation Committee will make a formal written outline of the required changes to the dissertation within one week of the dissertation defense as to what revisions are required and when these required changes must be completed. The student and Dissertation Committee will sign this document as an agreement acknowledging the required changes and deadline date. The revision deadline must be within six months of the defense date. The student is required to submit the revised dissertation to the Dissertation Committee by the agreed upon deadline. Failure to do so will result in the termination of the student’s program. The student may petition the Doctoral Education Committee for an extension of the revision deadline.

The guidelines for completion of the doctoral dissertation described herein are in accordance with of the regulations of the Department and the general requirements of the Graduate School found in the East Carolina University Graduate School Bulletin.

There are two dates for Commencement (in May and December). Please consult the University Calendar for the last date to submit copies of the dissertation to the Graduate School for completion of the degree in the spring, fall, or summer term.