Hi,
I am currently a first year undergraduate student who is interested in pursuing Public Health as a career later on. I will definitely be attending grad school. I am wondering what types of majors are looked upon as favorable by this field? I will be working for a minimum of two years before heading to grad school.
In public health, I’m interested in maybe going into something related to policy advising, policy development/design, sustainable development in community health, community health (women’s/children’s health) and human rights. So I would like to know what kind of major/double major would be most suitable for this.
Unfortunately, my school does not offer public health as a major. However, in the life sciences, I am considering Biology, Anthropology and Human Biology, and Neuroscience and behavioral biology. In the social sciences, I am considering economics and political science. I came in thinking I wanted to be a biology major, however I am disliking it thoroughly and know that I will not be pursuing anything in research/medicine.
I am strongly leaning towards Anthropology and Human Biology, which is a single degree offered as a BS. Yes, I do know that anthropology is not the best “marketable” major, however my end goal IS grad school. I just wanted to know that if, say, I double majored in Anthropology and Human Biology along with economics, will I be considered marketable in my years of working before grad school, as well as by the admissions committee when I apply for my masters?
Long post, but thank you so much for your answers!
If you put a significant effort in finding useful internships while you are in college, it will be easier to find a good job whatever major you are studying. Experience and contacts will get you in but you will not be necessarily doing work in the field of your major. However, for a Public Health graduate program I think that your proposed majors are quite good.
Thank you for your reply! I will definitely be using my summers in between each year to gain some real world experience.
Could I gain some insight into the following combinations?
Anthropology and Human Biology + International Studies
Anthropology and Human Biology + Economics
While I’m sure economics is looked upon as more favorable, I’m concerned that all my classes will be more calculus based rather than statistics based. I know how important statistics is in public health.
My PhD in public health 
Although you can major in anything to go into public health, natural sciences and social sciences are most complementary to the curriculum and the careers that MPH graduates typically pursue. Which ones are most useful depends on what you want to study and what you want to do. For example, epidemiologists might study math or biology or chemistry (although social science majors can work too), while those interested in the social/behavioral sciences in public health would study a social science undergrad major (although natural sciences could work, too).
If you wanted to do policy advising, sustainable development, community health, and human rights-type stuff, you’re going to want a social science major. Anthropology would be absolutely suitable for this. If you want to do the human biology part that’s fine, but it’s not strictly necessary.
Statistics is VERY important in public health. Biostatistics is a core area of public health, and you will take at least one statistics course (and epidemiology, which is math-based). The more you know, the more marketable you are; however, you don’t have to know a lot to go into public health. A lot of public health careers rely less on statistics (people work in teams and they hire statisticians to do the work; I’m doing that for an anthropologist right now, actually). Also, statistics is based on calculus, so an economics major will be very calculus-based but will also include a lot of statistics. However, if you really want to do statistics, does your school have a statistics major? If not, you could minor in math and/or just take the math classes related to prob & stats. At least two semesters of calculus (but 3 would be better), linear algebra, and then 1-2 classes in probability and statistics could do the trick for you.
If you don’t want to do economics, don’t double-major in economics. You might be more “marketable,” but not in the ways that you want to be. Your major in anthropology and human biology can get you jobs after college; you just have to be prudent in what kinds of internships and activities you do in undergrad. Most of my friends in PH school were anthro/soc/psych majors in undergrad and they still all had the required 2+ years of experience.
Juillet thank you so much for your insights! I have seen your replies to posts on other threads and was actually really hoping that you’d answer my questions
Yes f I don’t major in economics I will definitely be doing more statistics courses. I’m already in an intro to stats class where I’m learning all sorts of hypothesis tests and confidence intervals and I find it interesting! I was planning on taking maybe one more course in stats, and I will surely be doing a full year of calculus. However, you mentioned linear algebra and higher (multivariate?) calculus? At my school these are offered as two separate courses so it might be difficult for me to finish my actual major requirements and then include these on the side.
Glad I can help!
Yeah, you definitely don’t have to go that high I would only recommend that if you find yourself wanting to delve more deeply into statistics, like getting an MPH in biostatistics. If you’re interested in epi, the two semesters of calculus + intro to stats will be fine. And for any other area, you’ll have more than enough.
An example is Emory’s programs; for their MPH and MSPH (master’s of science in public health) in biostatistics, you need three semesters of calculus and linear algebra at minimum. For their epidemiology MSPH, they require one semester of calculus and one college science (biology preferred), and for their epidemiology MPH, they only require any college math and science class (although calculus and biology are preferred. The rest of the departments don’t really have a math requirement (if you’re interested in environmental health science, they’d probably prefer you had biology and chemistry).