MHA / MPH Dual Degree Program
About the Program
Fall 2020 Update: Admissions to this program are currently suspended. Contact UKCPH@uky.edu for more information.
The academic disciplines of healthcare and population health, which have traditionally been taught and housed in separate sectors, are rapidly converging. The new healthcare models supported by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation focus explicitly on the essential role of non-clinical inputs to individual and community health. Likewise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Community Transformation Grant program aims to improve population health through the merging of approaches traditionally separated into public health and healthcare silos. In keeping with this nationwide articulation of the need for population health orientation in healthcare, employers in the U.S. healthcare sector are building their institutional competence in public health. These market forces and caregiving paradigms point to the need for an MPH/MHA joint degree option.
The University of Kentucky Master of Health Administration (MHA) degree is a two-year, 50-hour program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). The Master of Public Health is a two-year, 42-hour program accredited by the Council on Education in Public Health (CEPH). The dual MPH / MHA program allows nine (9) credit hours to be recognized as fulfilling degree requirements in both programs, allowing the student to complete the MPH and MHA degrees with a total of 83 credit hours—compared to the 92 credit hours required to complete both degrees separately.