So im very interested in public health. I have looked at The university of Washington and that is my top school right now. (Please check out my other thread and chance me). I was just wondering of any other good public health schools??
So I was am a current senior and also interested in public health/ global health as a major. My assumption was that if a school was particularly high-ranked for the major for graduate students that it would provide for solid engagements in the university’s projects in that field.
Johns Hopkins is typically considered one of the best for all medicine, but especially public health.
UNC - Chapel Hill
Emory (in Atlanta… so by the CDC. Quite possibly means opportunities for internship/employment)
Boston U
Grinnell College recently announced a combined BA / MA program in Public Health with U. of Iowa:
https://www.grinnell.edu/academics/centers/ui-mph
Not sure if this school is a fit for you, but though I"d put it up for others who might come to this thread and find the program of interest.
I wouldn’t necessarily assume that. Some programs that are highly ranked for public health don’t have public health majors for undergrads. (Emory has a major in human health, which is related but not quite the same thing.) Other programs might concentrate on their graduate students to the exclusion of undergrads, or undergrads might find it difficult to engage in research on their level, or the professors might be so busy they don’t have time for mentoring and encouragement. I’m not saying that there isn’t overlap - there absolutely is, and I would take it into account when deciding - but I wouldn’t assume that the top schools of public health are automatically the best places to go.
That said, yes, Johns Hopkins, UNC-CH and Boston U are some of the top places for public health majors. Emory has the human health major and a 5-year BA/MSPH program. Tulane has an excellent SPH and a major in public health that is at their SPH. George Washington University also has an excellent school of public health and an undergraduate major in the field. I believe that both Berkeley and UCLA have undergraduate majors in public health, although those are public universities so they might be out of reach for you if you are not a CA resident. Tufts has a major in community health, IIRC; I think American U also has that major. Ithaca College has both health sciences and public and community health. I think CUNY-Hunter has an undergraduate community health major. Franklin & Marshall College has a public health major, and so does College of Charleston. University of Houston’s is just called “health,” but they are also an OOS public university. Some others are **NYU, Syracuse, UNC-Charlotte, University of South Carolina, University of Miami, ** and USC.
The University of Rochester is somewhat unique in that they have several public health BAs at a level of specialization that you usually only get in graduate school. There you can major in health, behavior, and society; health policy; bioethics; or epidemiology. They also have some certificates in health-related sciences like medphysics.
You might also want to check out related kinds of majors like health & society/health, behavior, and society (like University of Richmond’s healthcare and society major) and human development and family studies (which can incorporate a lot of things, but usually has a focus on developmental health and education). The Five Colleges (Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, Mount Holyoke and UMass-Amherst) also have a Culture, Health, and Society certificate program that you can get in any major, and Haverford and Bryn Mawr have a multidisciplinary bi-college minor in Health Studies. (I believe UMass-Amherst actually has a public health major).
Sorry if I come off as an old crank, but as an epidemiologist and public health professional, I am baffled by this recent trend toward bachelor’s degrees in public health. The entry-level degree for a public health professional really is a Master’s of Public Health, and I have to say that a Bachelor’s in Public Health makes as much sense to me as getting a degree in “pre-law” or “pre-med”. Certainly there are TRACKS that will leave you better prepared than others, but there is quite a lot of leeway in what one majors in as an undergrad that can land you in a top master’s program in public health. My own path was a bachelor’s degree with a double major in International Relations and Economics to an MPH in International Health with a concentration in Epidemiology to a doctorate in Epidemiology. I’m not saying to avoid undergrad majors in public health - I would just suggest you not limit yourself to those labels.
@julliet and @rrobb (and anyone else with advice) What steps would you recommend an undergraduate interested in public health take in terms of preparing for an MPH/PhD track down the road? D is interested in public health and is considering a double major in microbiology and “health, behavior, and society” at a school that encourages undergraduate research and that has a graduate school of public health sciences. She would probably want to apply to the school’s 3/2 program, but that is not an option until junior year. What advice would you give her about research? Other options to consider or pitfalls to avoid?
@EllieMom, it sounds as though your D has a great plan. The combination of natural science and a more broad major strikes me as an ideal combination. I struggled a bit with the required anatomy and physiology classes in my MPH program given that I hadn’t done any bio since 10th grade, but she should have no such problems. In terms of research, by all means she should get involved to the extent she can, but given that they have a graduate school of public health, priority for public health research opportunities will likely be given to doctoral students, then masters’, and only then undergrads. If there is an affiliated medical school and teaching hospital, that should increase the amount of research going on. Though I’m generally a proponent of LACs for undergraduate education, I can’t imagine that a Franklin & Marshall, for example, would offer the same type of public health research opportunities as, say, a BU or an Emory.
Given that your D is an undergrad and apparently an underclassman, it’s hard to project forward at this point all the way to a PhD, but I would offer one word of warning. Just as @Juillet rightly suggested exercising caution in concluding that a strong graduate program equals a strong undergraduate one, I have found that there can be a disconnect between a strong doctoral program in public health and a strong MPH one. My admittedly subjective opinion is that some grad schools of public health use their MPH programs as revenue streams to fund their doctoral programs. At least a third of the students in my particular MPH program, for example, were ministry of health and other public health officials from other (typically developing) countries.While it was great in terms of diversity, these were typically not the most academically-focused students, and the rest of us could not discern that much in the way of rigor was exerted in reviewing their academic qualifications. At another prominent SPH, (won’t name it, but it can be found north of Washington and south of New York) they have a well-deserved reputation for an extremely large and rather mediocre MPH program that will accept virtually anyone able to pay the freight for its prestigious name, largely to help fund their admittedly outstanding doctoral programs.