As the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us, health problems can be incredibly complex. Effective, efficient, and equitable solutions require not only individual patient treatment but also changes in global, national and local policy; innovations in our health care systems; outreach and health promotion programs from local health departments and community organizations; and campaigns to inform, motivate, and mobilize whole populations to shift their behavior.
As a public health major, students take courses to develop skills and understanding across the five core public health competency areas (Behavioral Social Sciences, Biostatistics, Environmental Health, Epidemiology, and Health Policy and Management) to tackle questions as broad as:
- Why are cancer deaths so much higher in some communities than in others? Is it that people there are more likely to develop cancer than others, or are they not diagnosed as early, or do they not have equal access to effective treatment, or all three? What can a community do to make a real difference? And what about a state, a hospital, a school, or a local employer?
- What barriers have made it challenging to improve access to mental health care in rural areas, and what strategies have worked best to address this? What role can evolving technology play to improve access to care? What works best in reducing the stigma around mental health care? Does it make a difference when patients have providers who have shared some of their life experiences and know where they are coming from?
The Public Health major prepares students to plan, implement, and evaluate public health programs for individuals, groups, and populations in a variety of settings that include worksites, hospitals, schools, and communities, and includes an internship to gain real-world public health experience - whether at a worksite or in a clinical, community, or government public health setting.
Graduates are prepared for entry-level positions in a variety of public health areas and are eligible to sit for the NCHEC Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) Exam and the ACSM/NPAS Physical Activity in Public Health Specialist (PAPHS) Exam. Students with the goal of earning a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree now have the opportunity to pursue an accelerated 5-year program through the College of Health and Human Science. The accelerated option can potentially eliminate one year of tuition costs and allow an additional year in the workforce or can allow students to complete the MPH degree prior to continuing on to a Ph.D. program, medical or dental school, nursing, occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), physician assistant (PA), or other professional or academic training.