My review: I completed my PhD (or Ph.D.) in Public Health at the Universidad Central de Nicaragua (UCN) in 2022, after almost 4 years of reasonably difficult studies (it so happens that my sister-in-law is from Nicaragua and that I was raised bilingual French and Spanish).
This was, after all, a 96-credit program with the following courses. In practice, nothing is delivered by UCN; everything is done by Texila American University (TAU) with an academic team mostly based in India.
Courses are delivered on a classic Moodle LMS, each course over ~12 weeks capped with a major paper (or project) and final quiz (proctored, 50 questions).
Pros: This program is comprehensive and affordable; doable by a working professional. The dissertation process was reasonably rigorous. The final degree is conferred by UCN, which is duly accredited and listed on the WHED (UCN is in fact an IAU member, which is remarkable).
Cons: Not much faculty interaction during the courses (notably compared with EUCLID). The material (mostly PowerPoint) is adequate overall but for Biostatistics a bit too light and lacking applications. The Quiz was too predictable for this particular course to really test Biostatistics skills. Also, software tools and skills (SPSS, SAS) are not adequately covered. For the dissertation, a student has to find his/her own supervisor, which can be a challenge. I was blessed and fortunate to have Fr. Danny John Schieffler of Sacred Heart University, a fellow Orthodox priest (Patriarchate of Moscow) as my supervisor.
Sacred Health University and IRPJ did publish the article resulting from my research: Vaccine Hesitancy in the Post-COVID-19 Era: An Interdisciplinary Approach for a Trust-and-Risk Paradigm with Governmental and Intergovernmental Implications
Overall, value for the dollar but some courses are only at MPH rather than tier-1 PhD level…
