Predoctoral Program

Candidates for the AHRQ NRSA predoctoral training program in health services research must be admitted for full-time doctoral study in one of the following UNC-CH academic departments: Epidemiology, Health Policy and Management, Health Behavior, Maternal and Child Health, Biostatistics, Nursing, Economics, Geography, Sociology, Political Science, Public Policy, Pharmacy, Anthropology or School of Library Science and must be considered by their academic department’s graduate program to be in their penultimate or final year of graduate study when they commence the training program. This means that they will have few remaining required courses and will concentrate most of their efforts in the first of two possible years of support on submission of their dissertation proposal. In their second year of program support (if required), predoctoral candidates will complete the dissertation project.

All predoctoral trainees will participate, with postdoctoral fellows, in the regular weekly core seminar on health services research throughout the year. As with postdoctoral fellows, predoctoral trainees will have established formal relationships with one or more faculty mentors who are part of the core faculty for the program.

Financial Assistance

Stipend amounts are set by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Current information can be found at www.ahrq.gov. In addition, the program will cover most of the costs of tuition and fees associated with academic work toward the doctoral degree, as well as a small amount of funds to support work in connection with the dissertation project.