The Master’s Degree in Public Health in Public Health Practice

Outcome Competencies of the MPH Program in PHP

The principal goal of the MPH program is to improve the public’s health through a broad-based, graduate-level public health curriculum designed for health care professionals. The curriculum covers all the public health competencies through the provision of courses in each of the following core public health disciplines: biostatistics, community health education, environmental health, epidemiology, and health policy and management. The curriculum includes additional courses in the areas crucial to public health practice, an interdisciplinary approach that melds economic, socio-cultural, health services research, and organizational management theories with the real world practice of public health professionals.

The Public Health Practice (PHP) Master’s Degree program is designed for the full-time, working health program administrator, public health worker, or health care professional who is not planning an academic career, but who plans to continue working in the health care field. After completely this program, learners should be able to:

• Describe origins of current health care dilemmas
• Implement best practices in community approaches to health promotion
• Apply epidemiological methods
• Design research protocols and interpret findings from research studies
• Employ appropriate methods for analysis of data
• Explain the influence of environmental factors on the public’s health
• Summarize regulations and laws in public health
• Design planning and evaluation procedures

Participants in the Public Health Practice MPH program seek to “be part of the solution” to our society’s persistent health care problems. They will come from state health departments, managed care organizations, academic medical centers, municipal and county health departments, Veterans Administration health systems, school health programs, private not-for-profit community agencies, hospitals, and many other settings. While there is a strong interest in the program within the Northeastern United States, we have learners from across the United States, around the world, and at military installations worldwide.