Planning Your Public Health Focus Area
PHS students design their own personalized focus area to explore a public health topic of interest in greater depth.
About The Focus Area Requirement
The focus area is your opportunity to tailor part of your Public Health Sciences major around your personal interests and career goals. You will choose a set of related upper-level courses that allow you to explore a specific aspect of public health in greater depth. This requirement highlights the interdisciplinary nature of public health and encourages you to draw connections across fields.
Your focus area must include at least 12 credits of 300-level or higher coursework. While the courses should clearly relate to the study of public health, they don’t need to be listed under the PUBHLTH subject code. You are encouraged to explore relevant courses across departments.
Examples of student focus area titles:
| Clinical Public Health | Equity-Centered Healthcare Management |
| Community Health Education in Underserved Areas | Food Access and Justice |
| Developmental Disabilities and Human Services | Health Care Policy and Informatics |
| Economics of Health and Sustainable Development | Health Data Analytics and Management |
| Environmental Justice | Infectious Disease Epidemiology |
| Epidemiology of Gender and Health | Public Health Journalism and Advocacy |
Focus Area Proposals must be submitted and approved no later than spring of the junior year. Students have multiple opportunities to learn about, reflect on, and workshop their focus area proposals:
- Participate in the in-class focus area planning workshop embedded in the required PUBHLTH 323 junior-year writing course.
- Attend a Focus Area Workshop lead by Peer Advisors. At the end of each workshop, there will be time available to meet with a peer advisor and submit the Focus Area Proposal. Workshops are offered once per fall and once per spring semester.
- Drop in to the Peer Advising Office to meet with a peer advisor about planning or submitting the Focus Area Proposal.
Focus area proposals may be submitted after meeting with peer advisors, reflecting in PUBHLTH 323, or attending a workshop. The public health advisors review proposals on an ongoing basis throughout the year; early submission of focus area proposals is encouraged.
As of Summer 2022: Chem 261, Chem 262, Chem 269, and Chem 250 cannot be used towards the focus area requirement. All focus area courses must be at the 300-level or higher.
Ready to submit your Focus Area Proposal? Click this link!