The Department of Geography at Michigan State University seeks qualified applicants to apply to the Master’s/PhD degree program, with funding provided through a grant titled, “Health Policy Analysis and Mapping” with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services makes concerted efforts to ensure equitable access to healthcare through the Certificate of Need (CON) program, which reviews the capacity, access, need and costs related to healthcare services to ensure standards are maintained for these services. Michigan’s CON program ensures the state does not have a surplus of expensive services and facilities and that facilities are provided by groups with adequate expertise. The CON program covers the number of licensed beds or the relocation of licensed beds from one site to another, health facility acquisition, new health facilities, and certain medical services expansion, replacement or establishment.
This grant involves generating spatial analysis and reports for use by the CON to develop evidence-based public health policy. The selected applicant will develop, edit, and maintain spatial datasets relating to existing and proposed CON-covered clinical services (e.g., MRI, CT) and licensed health facilities (e.g., hospitals, nursing homes). These datasets will be integrated with other demographic information (e.g., population, travel times/distances) for review, analysis, and mapping.
Funding includes a stipend, tuition, and health insurance. Funding is allocated on an annual basis and is renewed based on performance and funding availability.
Desired qualifications: ArcGIS, data files in Excel, coding in R or other program.

To apply: Please send a CV and research statement by Nov 30, 2023 to: Dr. Amber Pearson (apearson@msu.edu). If you have general questions about admission to the Graduate program, please contact the Graduate Student Advisor in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University.