National Research Service Awards will be given primarily to postdoctoral (post-MD, DDS) and predoctoral students pursuing a PhD in the Health Care Systems Department of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The PhD program combines intensive, graduate-level training in health services research and advanced study in a traditional discipline with cross-disciplinary course work and hands-on research. This program prepares students for research and teaching careers, drawing upon the most advanced techniques of the contribution disciplines, as well as being competitive with graduates of a single discipline degree-granting program. This type of training is most needed for superior analysis of health care organization, financing and delivery issues. Students are required to complete 20 semester course units. At least six courses are in health care, six are in a major disciplinary cluster, four are in a minor or electives, two in statistics and two in microeconomics. Major disciplinary clusters may be chosen from economics/public management, operations research/decision sciences, statistics/epidemiology, finance, accounting, management, sociology/history and sociology of science, marketing/psychology. The program is designed for candidates with proven academic capabilities, creativity and motivation to pursue a career in health services research. In the past, candidates have had backgrounds in medicine, dental medicine, economics, hospital administration, insurance, sociology and accounting. Five students (three pre and three postdoctoral) would be funded for each of the five years. We also support up to one exceptional postdoctoral student enrolled at Penn in a PhD program in the social sciences committed to health services research. Candidate disciplines include economics, sociology, anthropology and history and sociology of science, all of which have faculty at Penn who are nationally recognized for their contributions to health services research. Active participation in health services research is required. Students serve as research assistant on faculty-supervised projects which include ongoing research projects at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and the Section of General Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In the latter years of their program, students do original health services research which culminates in the dissertation. Students are trained to pursue careers in academia (teaching and research roles), high quality research organizations, and government.
