The concentration in Pharmaceutical Health Outcomes and Policy (PHOP) provides students with opportunities and experiences to address critical issues in cost, access, and quality of pharmaceutical care from clinical, sociobehavioral, economic, organizational, and technological perspectives. Traditional and innovative areas of pharmaceutical health outcomes research include pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacoeconomics, comparative effectiveness, patient-centered outcomes, implementation science, population health, data science, and translational research.

The graduate program offers learning and experiences in health care systems, sociobehavioral sciences, health care quality, biostatistics, advanced regression analyses, research methods, and design, pharmacoepidemiology, and pharmacoeconomics. Elective courses such as patient-reported outcomes and risk adjustment provide advanced learning experiences, along with the opportunities to participate in grant proposal writing as well as teaching and research practicums.

The graduate program is enhanced through its collaboration with world-renowned institutions at the Texas Medical Center, such as the Univ. of Texas Health Sciences Center and MD Anderson Cancer Center, and other UH colleges and departments, including the Bauer College of Business Administration's MBA program (accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business), and the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Dept. of Economics that offers Ph.D. and M.A. in Applied Economics.

Graduates of this program are prepared to become scientists, directors, and professors with a philosophy based on excellence in teaching, research, and service in the areas of Health Economics and Outcomes Research. Welcoming its first students in 2009, UHCOP's PHOP Ph.D. program – now offered as a concentration of the Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences – is celebrating its 14-year anniversary and has a 100 percent job placement rate for its graduates.