Skip to Content

Arnold School of Public Health

  • Group photo of faculty and students

Health Services Policy & Management

Health Services Policy and Management (HSPM) is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the promotion of personal and public health through planning, organizing, directing, controlling, coordinating and evaluating health services.

Career opportunities exist in hospitals and clinics, state and federal health care agencies, physician practices, long-term care facilities, professional organizations, consulting firms, insurance companies, health departments, and hospital and medical associations. Individuals from a wide range of undergraduate majors can expect to succeed in health administration, given the many career opportunities the field offers.

The MPH program emphasizes the management of public health agencies and public sector health services. Graduates from the MHA program find jobs in finance and business development, operations management, information technology management, human resources, patient and community relations and other fields. The Ph.D. prepares students to conduct health services research and/or teach at a university level.

The Department of Health Services Policy and Management’s mission is to be actively involved in improving quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of health services and health systems locally and globally. (Adopted Fall 2021).


Degrees Offered

We offer seven advanced degrees related to health services policy and management. Each graduate degree has specific application deadlines and requirements.

Health Services Policy & Management News

Syeda Akhtar

Fulbright Scholar wins national grant to support dissertation research using wastewater-based epidemiology to detect STIs

Health services policy and management (HSPM) doctoral candidate Syeda Shehirbano Akhtar is still in the early part of her career, but she's already amassed significant global health experience.

Peiyin Hung

Researchers untangle residence and race when looking at postpartum hospital readmissions

The authors found that Black individuals in urban areas were at highest risk of postpartum readmission. Rural residence was also associated with increased readmission risk and eclipsed differences in readmission rates by race/ethnicity.

Saundra Glover

Saundra Glover reflects on a quarter-century of breaking down barriers and building a brighter future

Glover retired in 2016, but she continues to see the fruits of her past efforts - watching her former students become full professors, transform into thought leaders who influence policy and serve on impactful committees, and preparing the next generation to carry the work forward.

Emma Boswell

Emma Boswell selected to join National Rural Health Association's Rural Health Fellows Program

Master of Public Health in Epidemiology alumna Emma Boswell is the eighth member of the Rural Health Research Center in the last decade to be invited to join the National Rural Health Association's Rural Health Fellows Program.

woman in labor

Half of rural SC families bypass local hospitals to deliver their babies in urban settings and experience worse outcomes

Rural and maternal health expert Peiyin Hung has published new research in JAMA Network Open on maternal health outcomes based on the hospital locations where rural South Carolinians give birth.

Krystal Cooper

Staff Spotlight: Krystal Cooper

A 2009 alumna of the Master of Health Administration program, Krystal Cooper found her way back to the Arnold School after nearly 10 years with large health care systems.

More Arnold School News


Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

©