MPH Master of Public Health Academics & Curriculum

If you have a passion for improving public health by reducing chemical exposures, engaging communities in problem-solving, planning for climate-related health impacts, or pursuing environmental justice, consider applying to the MPH concentration in Environmental Health. Environmental health practitioners strive to protect people and communities from physical, chemical, biological, and even structural factors that exist outside the body but contribute to disease and poor health outcomes.   

As an Environmental Health concentrator, you will work with faculty who share their expertise in environmental epidemiology, occupational and environmental medicine, toxicology, children’s environmental health, injury prevention, environmental health communication, community-engaged research and citizen science, and environmental health literacy and promotion.   

By learning strategies to assess, reduce, control, and communicate about environmental hazards, students who pursue the Environmental Health concentration prepare themselves for careers in local and state health departments, federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. From investigating potential threats to developing health-protective recommendations to implementing and evaluating evidence-based solutions, our graduates are positioned to interpret data that can help tackle today’s most pressing challenges. 

If you have a passion for understanding and identifying factors associated with disease and how to prevent disease, consider applying to the MPH concentration in Epidemiology. The epidemiology concentration will empower you for success in various roles within public health agencies, academic research institutions, healthcare organizations, and local, state, and federal government.  

As an Epidemiology concentrator, you’ll learn from a curriculum that blends theoretical foundations of the methods of the discipline with current scientific content from sub-specialties in the field including cancer, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, and occupational and environmental epidemiology. There’s a strong emphasis on the development of the core methodologic and analytic skills for understanding and practicing the discipline to understand disease patterns, distributions, and determinants. Through a practicum experience, you’ll have the opportunity to apply skills learned in the classroom to real-world public health issues. 

Guided by a faculty advisory committee, the capstone project will integrate your knowledge and skills into real world project that will demonstrate your competence and understanding of the application of the epidemiologic approach.  Enhancing your critical thinking and research skills through study of biostatistics, environmental health practices, models of health behavior, and public health leadership are foundational to having a well-rounded public health education. In addition, you’ll learn broader public health principles and practices which will enhance your ability to work within multidisciplinary teams and appreciate the complexity of evolving public health challenges and current approaches to addressing them. 

If you have a passion for understanding and measuring how behavior impacts health, addressing health disparities, or implementing health promotion and disease prevention programs, consider applying to the MPH concentration in Health Behavior. Practitioners who specialize in health behavior work to assess and address social determinates of health, health inequities, and individual factors that impact community health outcomes. 

As a Health Behavior concentrator, you will learn how to identify, plan, adapt, implement, and evaluate sustainable evidence-based health promotion and disease prevention programs. You’ll be able to communicate and disseminate health promotion program methods and outcomes while examining and interpreting evidence in support of those programs. 

In addition, you will gain a deep understanding of the complex role the social determinants of health play in impacting community health outcomes, and develop skills to address health inequity through community-based public health work. 

If you have a passion for building healthier populations, consider applying to the MPH concentration in Health Management & Policy. Health management and policy practitioners strive to be changemakers and work in various public health organizations and services. 

Building from a foundational understanding of public health and the public health system, the Health Management & Policy concentration provides training in the management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Through the choice of electives, you’ll be able to tailor your program to include training in how to develop, implement, and evaluate policy. This combination of management and policy is a critical component to a successful career in public health management. 

In addition, you’ll be able to evaluate how multiple service delivery and financing systems interact in shaping health and wellbeing on a population level along with how to apply the tools associated with the management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. 

• Apply epidemiological methods to the breadth of settings and situations in public health practice.
• Select quantitative and qualitative data collection methods appropriate for a given public health context.
• Analyze quantitative and qualitative data using biostatistics, informatics, computer-based programming and software, as appropriate.
• Interpret results of data analysis for public health research, policy or practice.

• Compare the organization, structure and function of health care, public health and regulatory systems across national and international settings.
• Discuss the means by which structural bias, social inequities and racism undermine health and create challenges to achieving health equity at organizational, community and societal levels.

• Assess population needs, assets and capacities that affect communities’ health.
• Apply awareness of cultural values and practices to the design or implementation of public health policies or programs.
• Design a population-based policy, program, project or intervention.
• Explain basic principles and tools of budget and resource management.
• Select methods to evaluate public health programs.

• Discuss multiple dimensions of the policy-making process, including the roles of ethics and evidence.
• Propose strategies to identify stakeholders and build coalitions and partnerships for influencing public health outcomes.
• Advocate for political, social or economic policies and programs that will improve health in diverse populations.
• Evaluate policies for their impact on public health and health equity.

• Apply principles of leadership, governance and management, which include creating a vision, empowering others, fostering collaboration and guiding decision making.
• Apply negotiation and mediation skills to address organizational or community challenges.

• Select communication strategies for different audiences and sectors.
• Communicate audience-appropriate public health content, both in writing and through oral presentation.
• Describe the importance of cultural competence in communicating public health content.

• Perform effectively on Interprofessional teams.

• Apply systems thinking tools to a public health issue.