Pathways into Public Health Careers
With a Public Health Field degree, you can pursue many specialties or fields. These may include, without limitation:
- Environmental Health
- Occupational Health
- Health Education
- Advocacy and Promotion
- Health Administration
- Public Health Policy
- Emergency Management
- Infectious Disease
- Global Health
- Nutrition Epidemiology Biostatistics Behavioral Science
- Maternal and Child Health
Your job title, qualifications, and experience will depend on what type of public health degree you possess. Master’s degrees are ideal for supervisory or leadership positions in these fields.
Are There Career Opportunities for Public Health Bachelor’s Degree Holders?
With a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Health, you can pursue many careers that help address health emergencies, disease outbreaks and other threats to your community. Gain the ability to collect and analyze health data, create interventions for health problems and offer counseling. With your degree and acquired skillset you may choose to work in these fields.
Hospitals and Clinics
Hospitals are the classic example of a healthcare-related workplace. Public health majors do not usually provide patient care but can still perform various tasks within hospital walls. A bachelor’s degree is usually necessary to become an effective Public Health professional.
Regulatory Compliance Specialist – Responsible for ensuring hospitals adhere to appropriate safety, privacy guidelines and health standards as well as fulfilling any necessary paperwork required by regulators.
A Health Promotion Specialist is an individual who collaborates with hospitals to develop strategies that promote healthy campaigns and easier access to resources. For instance, they could assist their hospital in creating a plan to reduce opioid overdoses in the area. Furthermore, these specialists may create promotional materials such as informational brochures on specific programs or initiatives.
Research Facilities
Research is an integral component of public health. Public health workers collect health data, survey people, and analyze the results to create initiatives and policies related to public health. Typically this work takes place in research centers; you may even receive titles within these environments such as:
Public Health Planner is where you can collect data about the health of your communities for analysis. This data will be utilized to create policies and plans that promote safer, healthier communities.
Public Health Research Associate: Your research will involve analyzing trends, data, science and other aspects related to public health. You could specialize in an area such as infectious disease control, disaster preparedness or mental health care.
Health Organizations and Agencies
Public health specialists can be found working for various departments, agencies and organizations. These may include government organizations responsible for creating policies and campaigns at local, state or national levels; non-profit organisations responsible for specific initiatives to achieve organizational objectives; most positions being open to anyone outside the organization – many public health workers work outside in communities as their real place of employment. A degree in public health could open doors to a career as:
Health Education Specialist – Develop and execute programs to inform people about healthy living. Children may learn about the hazards of secondhand smoke or drug use, for instance; you might even inform people of the need to wear masks during a pandemic. Non-profit health care organizations often employ health education specialists; however they can also be found working in schools, clinics and government organizations.
Public Health Advocates provide assistance to populations that need help accessing healthcare and other resources. Public health advocates help communities overcome obstacles to quality healthcare, advocating for their continued prosperity in the process.
Disease Prevention Specialist: Provides support to communities in managing, controlling, preventing and treating diseases by creating campaigns that prevent illness, improving treatment methods and conducting surveys to detect infectious diseases.
You can use the Emergency Response Planner: to coordinate your plans in case of an emergency. This could include creating strategies for dealing with natural disasters or even a pandemic outbreak.
Are There Employment Opportunities for Masters in Public Health?
A master’s in public health (MPH) can advance your career and open doors to many more opportunities after graduation. Graduate-level degrees are necessary for many positions within public health, such as Epidemiologist (Health Administrator), Biostatistician, Emergency Management Director or Biostatistician; these jobs demand leadership qualities along with advanced skillsets within public health; an MPH can give you all of these possibilities! The only remaining question remains “Where can you find a master’s in public health?”
With a master’s program in Public Health, you will acquire the skills and knowledge to lead in advanced positions across many healthcare and government agencies, hospitals and health departments, school systems, research institutions, and more. However, with higher-ranking roles that showcase your voice more prominently, these are just some examples of potential career titles you could pursue with an MPH degree.
Community Health
- Health Program Coordinator
- Director, Community Outreach
- Public Health Educator
Global Health
- Global Infectious Disease Analyst
- Policy Analyst
- Global Health Advocate
- Public/Healthcare Policy Analyst
- Health Services Manager
- Non-Profit Executive Director
- Health Administrator
Biostatistics and Informatics
- Biostatistician Systems Analyst Specialist in Health Informatics
- Emergency Management Director Disaster Preparedness Coordinator Program Manager Epidemiology and Research Epidemiologist Clinical Research Coordinator Demographer Environmental Health
- State and Federal Environmentalist Public Health Engineer Environmental Engineer Occupational Hygienicist Industrial Hygienicist Industrial Hygienicist Industrial Hygienicist Industrial Hygienicist Technician
- Workplace Health and Safety Specialist
Additional Resource:
https://www.cdc.gov/training/publichealth101/public-health.html
britannica.com/topic/public-health
sciencedirect.com/journal/public-health
