Dec 05, 2025

2025-2026 Graduate Catalog

HELP

2025-2026 Graduate Catalog

Health Behavior Science and Promotion (PhD)

Goal 1: Students will demonstrate an understanding of social and behavioral risk factors on individual and population health behavior.

Goal 2: Students will demonstrate written proficiency of the literature in a health behavior science and promotion content area.

Goal 3: Students will demonstrate oral proficiency of the literature in Health behavior science and promotion-related content area.

Goal 4: The student will demonstrate the ability to: (1) generate and code summary variables; (2) code and run appropriate descriptive, bivariate, and multivariable models; (3) interpret output for descriptive, bivariate, and multivariable models.

Goal 5: Students will demonstrate the ability to identify and answer a novel research question.

Goal 6: Students will demonstrate the ability to disseminate written scientific literature.

Goal 7: Students will demonstrate the ability to verbally present scientific results in a scholarly setting.

Program Policy Document:

Please see the Program Policy Document for more information.

Requirements for the Degree:

The Health Behavior Science and Promotion PhD program requires successful completion of a minimum of 48 credit hours, completion of a preliminary examination, dissertation proposal defense, dissertation defense, and one publishable paper. The HBSP PhD is designed to be completed over a 4-year period.

Core Requirements:

15 credits.

HBNS 803 - Advanced Health Promotion Programming Credit(s): 3
HBNS 813 - Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine Credit(s): 3
HBNS 820 - Social and Environmental Determinants of Health Behavior Credit(s): 3
HBNS 855 - Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research in Health Sciences Credit(s): 3
HBNS 856 - Multivariable Biostatistics for Population Health Credit(s): 3

Statistics/Data Analysis Electives:

9 credits

Choose three of the following:

ANFS 650 - Applied Biomedical Communication Credit(s): 3
HBNS 609 - Research Methods in Health Science Credit(s): 3
BISC 643 - Biological data analysis Credit(s): 3
COMM 603 - Communication Research Methods - Procedures Credit(s): 3
COMM 604 - Communication Research Methods - Analysis Credit(s): 3
EDUC 812 - Introduction to Structural Equation Modeling Credit(s): 3
EDUC 826 - Mixed Methods in Social Science Research Credit(s): 3
EDUC 856 - Introduction to Statistical Inference Credit(s): 3
EPID 603 - Biostatistics for Health Sciences I Credit(s): 3
EPID 604 - Introduction to Epidemiologic Data Analysis in SAS Credit(s): 3
EPID 605 - Epidemiology Methods I Credit(s): 3
EPID 610 - Epidemiology Methods II Credit(s): 3
EPID 613 - Biostatistics for Health Sciences II Credit(s): 3
EPID 614 - Biostatistics for Health Sciences III Credit(s): 3
EPID 615 - Epidemiology Methods III Credit(s): 3
HDFS 615 - Research Methods Credit(s): 3
HDFS 815 - Research Issues and Designs Credit(s): 3
KAAP 602 - Data Analysis and Interpretation in Health Sciences Credit(s): 3
MMSC 635 - Practical Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics Credit(s): 3
NURS 814 - Advanced Quantitative Research in Nursing Science Credit(s): 3
PSYC 809 - Research Design Credit(s): 3
PSYC 860 - Psychological Statistics I Credit(s): 3
PSYC 878 - Hierarchical Linear Modeling Credit(s): 3
SOCI 605 - Data Collection and Analysis Credit(s): 3
SPPA 718 - Survey Research Methods Credit(s): 3
SPPA 808 - Qualitative Research Methods Credit(s): 3
STAT 608 - Statistical Research Methods Credit(s): 3
STAT 613 - Applied Multivariate Statistics Credit(s): 3
STAT 615 - Design and Analysis of Experiments Credit(s): 3
STAT 617 - Multivariate Methods and Statistical Learning Credit(s): 3
STAT 656 - Biostatistics Credit(s): 3

General Elective:

9 credits of graduate coursework in any subject area at the 600 level or higher

Research:

6 credits

HBNS 868 - Independent Research Credit(s): 1-6

HBNS Seminars:

HBNS860 is taken for 0 credits each fall (4 times)

HBNS 860 - Graduate Research Seminar Credit(s): 0

Dissertation:

9 credits

HBNS 969 - Dissertation Research Credit(s): 9

Credits to Total a Minimum of 48

Last Revised for 2025-2026 Academic Year