现在，美国医疗体系占美国国民生产总值的16％以上，在美国用于任何商品和服务的支出中，每六美元中就有大约一美元。该行业的庞大规模和不可持续的增长使得对美国卫生系统的研究至关重要，因为我们希望了解我们的系统运行良好，运行不佳以及如何在降低成本的同时提高质量。融合了医学，监管和法律领域知识的学位对于那些对系统进行改革（或者只是保持其正常运行）感兴趣的人而言，将是一个关键工具。我们的联合学位课程包括两个硕士学位：一个是卫生服务研究，另一个是流行病学。这两个程序都使学生成为大量医学研究（包括重要的临床试验）的明智消
The American health care system now accounts for more than 16 percent of the U.S. gross national productabout one dollar out of every six spent in the United States on any goods and services. The vast size and unsustainable growth of this sector makes research about the U.S. health system vitally important as we seek to learn what our system does well, what it does poorly, and how to improve its quality while lowering its cost. A degree that blends knowledge of the medical, regulatory, and legal arenas will be a key tool for those interested in reforming the systemor in just keeping it working. Two masters degrees are available as part of our joint degree program: One in health services research, and one in epidemiology. Both programs prepare students to be intelligent consumers of a great deal of medical research, including important clinical trials. The masters program in epidemiology trains students in statistics and in their application to the real problems of populations. Although this program traditionally examines issues like the incidence of disease, its methods also apply to the diagnosis of social conditions, such as the epidemiology of violent crime or of arrests for drug crimes. Law students interested in these programs will find themselves in a special location for this kind of work