NCSP at Penn

Training

The core of the NCSP training experience at Penn includes work leading to a Master of Science in Health Policy Research (MSHP) degree. The MSHP program prepares graduates for health services research and health policy research careers in academia, government, community, and industry. Major curricular areas include health economics, health policy, research methods and statistics, and mentored research leading to a thesis. Additional training areas include study design and analysis; communication of research including through mass media outlets; bioethics; grant writing and submission; career mapping; and clinical experience.

Core Program Activities

In tandem with their didactic experiences, Scholars gain leadership skills through extracurricular programming tailored to hone the skills of clinician-researchers, and have the opportunity to learn from a wide array of national leaders in health care and health care research.  

Scholar Seminar Series

Our weekly Scholar Seminars include four types of sessions:

  • Professional development series (PDS): In conjunction with the MSHP, our PDS series consists of topics of broad relevance for professional development and academic and personal productivity. Various faculty from across campus present on a number of topics related to developing students’ career and training. Past topics have included: negotiations, meeting facilitation, conflict resolution, work/life balance, personal finance, motivation and productivity, presentation skills and mentorship.
  • Community engagement series: Part of our Community Engaged Research (CER) Curriculum, this series features speakers who are conducting and leading community engaged research and programs. The goals are to expose Scholars to high quality CER that will serve as a model when reviewing or drafting protocols, manuscripts, and grants in the future, and to create informal opportunities for trainees to ask nuanced questions related to CER research partnerships, planning, management, and ethics.
  • Health equity journal club: The purpose of this curriculum is to introduce scholars to seminal papers in health equity, social determinants of health, and critical race theory. A number of different topics are covered with a focus on social, policy, and environmental determinants of health. Each second-year scholar works with NCSP leadership to select and present one or more papers, focusing on methodology and key conclusions in each, as well as outlining directions for future work. The papers are drawn from a variety of fields in order to expose scholars to different approaches to studying health disparities.
  • Research in progress (RIP) sessions: RIPs are interactive working group sessions where Scholars present ongoing updates related to their research work, conference presentations, and/or job talks. RIP sessions may be as formal as a PowerPoint presentation, or as informal as bringing a survey instrument that needs revising. NCSP directors attend the RIPs to provide input from a diverse set of perspectives and scholars are strongly encouraged to invite their mentors and/or colleagues to attend.

Policy Lens

  • Visiting Policy Speaker Series (VPS): Our Visiting Policy Speaker Series is a scholar-led event organized by the VPS committee (scholars + program leadership).  The goal is to engage with leaders in an informal setting.  The typical format is a ‘fireside’ chat focused on leadership and career development, but the specific format depends on the speaker.

  • Annual Policy Trip to DC: Once a year, our Scholars travel to Washington DC for a two-day experience focused on engaging with policymakers and other influential leaders. In recent years, Scholars have met with leaders on Capitol Hill, federal agencies, think tanks, and the media. These closed-door conversations provide opportunities to learn about critical policy issues, discuss strategies to maximize impact, and consider a range of career paths.

  • Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI): Penn LDI is dedicated to improving health and health care by catalyzing collaborative, multidisciplinary research that influences policy and practice. They offer a robust speaker series (past events can be viewed here) and a roster of nearly 500 fellows from all of Penn's schools, the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Most of our program faculty and that of the MSHP are senior fellows, along with many of our NCSP alumni. Our current scholars maintain associate fellow appointments, giving them access to Institute resources to support their research. 

Interdisciplinary Education for an Inter-professional Cohort

Scholars join us from a wide variety of clinical specialties to offer a rich learning environment of different perspectives. Nurse and physician Scholars training together offers an opportunity to create team-based approaches to address communities’ most pressing health and health care needs. While inter-professional training is increasingly given lip-service in clinical settings, our program offers a unique opportunity for our Scholars to learn and innovate together, and with community partners, in the research context with deep and sustained intellectual engagement across professional boundaries.

Cross-Campus Knowledge Building

Solving today's complex problems requires knowledge that crosses traditional boundaries and Penn encourages collaborations across campus. Health policy researchers are intrinsically multidisciplinary, using tools from a wide range of scientific disciplines to gain insight into the complex challenges facing health care. To this end, program faculty, including lecturers and individual scholar mentors, are drawn from across the University:

Key Clinical Partners