<p>What exactly does this degree prepare you for? and what is its significance. I have not heard too much about this degree and it does not seem like too many schools ofer it, but is it very competative to get into an MPH program?</p>
<p>I guess you can be an epidemiologist, or work in the administration concerning health problems.</p>
<p>Hi there, an MPH as a standalone degree will prepare you for public health - namely epidemiology, biostatistics, global health research, health services (to some degree health finance although an MBA might be better for this), environmental, behavioral, and occupational health. Public health workers tend to enact change from a policy and research-based level. In general, public health focuses on prevention whereas medicine focuses on treatment. As you can imagine, public health is intimately linked with medicine (to the chagrin of people in the public health field) and people often research in public health while practicing medicine. Many schools do offer joint MD/MPH programs to this effect. Chances are though, even medical schools that don't have a public health school, do a substantial amount of public health research within the confines of the medical school. As to the selectivity of public health schools and MPH programs - it tends to vary wildly depending on the school and the quality of the program, but in general, they are less selective than medical schools. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>I found this website. It does a much better job than I do at explaining public health. <a href="http://www.whatispublichealth.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.whatispublichealth.org/</a></p>