<p>I am an undergraduate in Biology, with extensive research experience. I am interested in pursuing a graduate program.</p>
<p>I am familiar with the careers a Masters in Public or Global Health leads to. I am not sure if research related positions are a possibility with this graduate degree.</p>
<p>With Masters in Public/Global Health, is research possible? Can one find jobs in private industry?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any advice.</p>
<p>It depends on what you get the MPH in. You’ll be far more likely to find research jobs with an MPH in epidemiology, biostatistics, or environmental health sciences than if you got one in health behavior, health promotion, or health policy and management.</p>
<p>There are jobs in private industry - I’m in a SPH right now and I’ve seen two classes graduate so far. The ones that got jobs the fastest were, predictably, the health policy and management people - but they got jobs in hospital administration and finance. If you look at employment things like Public Health Employment Connection and USAJOBS, there are always lots of positions for epidemiologists and biostatistics. The upside is that people in those fields can usually do both the jobs advertised specifically for them AND the more general public health jobs, so it’s a more versatile degree.</p>
<p>But, it also depends on what you mean by “research.” MPHs are going to be in research support positions - you’ll be crunching numbers for someone else’s project, or working as a project coordinator helping to run the project and do the day to day ground work. If you want to lead your own research lab or work as a primary investigator on a research project in a think tank, government research agency, or some private firm - you’ll need a PhD or a DrPH. I think for some grants at the NIH you’re not even considered seriously unless you have a doctoral degree.</p>
<p>What are the prospects of specializing in health promotion. I am an experienced marketer who is considering going back for an mph in that sector, if I can get into a program that is.</p>
<p>Ramjoy, I think it’s possible, but not if you want to do the kind of research that is best done under controlled conditions and requires the most up-to-date lab technology. You will be working in a team, that is for sure, and it will be a large team. You will almost certainly have the chance to design basic experiments and studies with blunt tools that can be used by a large organization.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with Julliet. If you want to design cutting-age research, you should go for a PhD and do the lab work thing. But if you are okay with supervising some lab work and working in collaboration with labs and having a big say in the design of some important experiments and research in the field with organizations like WHO, UNICEF and Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, then a master’s is what you want.</p>
<p>Good luck. It’s a very important field and it needs good people.</p>
<p>Idinct, I think that competition is tight without any experience. With marketing you might look at something more closely related to your field. Microfinance, for example.</p>
<p>FWIW I have had a research career for something like a decade, in both academia and industry, and I have never met anyone holding just an MPH. I have however met several individuals with a Phd and an MPH. If you want to have a career in research, I suggest, like everyone else on the thread, that you look into a research degree like a Phd.</p>