What Can I Do with a Public Health Degree?

Get­ting a bachelor’s in pub­lic health can be the first step toward one of the most reward­ing career paths in the 21st cen­tu­ry. Pub­lic health is the aca­d­e­m­ic study that is ded­i­cat­ed to iden­ti­fy­ing and pre­vent­ing dis­ease out­breaks – like the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, and to mod­i­fy­ing exit­ing sys­temic health dilem­mas that impact the pop­u­la­tion over­all, like envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion, among oth­er objectives.

The Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol, sit­u­at­ed in Atlanta, Geor­gia, (CDC), has defined the con­cept of pub­lic health as the sci­ence of protecting/improving com­mu­ni­ty health through pro­gram pro­mo­tions that include –

• Research that seeks to pre­vent injuries or eradicates/manages disease.
• Healthy Lifestyles and improve.
• The con­trol and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of infec­tious disease.

Is Public Health a Good Career?

For stu­dents with a sig­nif­i­cant inter­est in one of the many fas­ci­nat­ing careers in pub­lic health, it is impor­tant to con­sid­er these rel­e­vant questions –

• Is pub­lic health a good career based on your income objectives?
• Is a bach­e­lors in pub­lic health worth it?
• Which pub­lic health degree careers are the most popular?
• Are there careers in pub­lic health that allow pro­fes­sion­als to work internationally?
• Which of the many pub­lic health careers would suit your tal­ents and skills?

Civic-mind­ed stu­dents often pur­sue careers in pub­lic health as the pub­lic health field offers a vari­ety of health­care occu­pa­tions from the nation­al to the com­mu­ni­ty level.

With a pub­lic health degree, you may work for gov­ern­ment agen­cies, health orga­ni­za­tions, non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, and oth­er parts of the health care sys­tem, or in a relat­ed field Career options and job titles include:

• occu­pa­tion­al health
• health ser­vices manager
• pol­i­cy analyst
• bio­sta­tis­ti­cian

Pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als help with improv­ing health out­comes, emer­gency pre­pared­ness, pub­lic health pol­i­cy, well­ness ini­tia­tives, edu­ca­tion­al out­reach, and more. Whether you are an entry-lev­el research assis­tant or a full-time pro­fes­sion­al with a mas­ter of pub­lic health, you will be mak­ing a difference.

Accreditation for Public Health Degree Programs

Decid­ing which school or pro­gram to choose from the many avail­able best under­grad­u­ate pub­lic health pro­grams is a life-impact­ing deci­sion. But how do stu­dents decide which of these best under­grad­u­ate pub­lic health pro­grams is the right choice for them and worth the tuition costs required to earn the degree?

The most direct tech­nique in deter­min­ing the qual­i­ty of an aca­d­e­m­ic degree is to iden­ti­fy if the school/university is region­al­ly accred­it­ed or the pro­gram has been received spe­cial­ized accred­i­ta­tion from a sanc­tioned agency. Accred­i­ta­tion is the process that deter­mines if the school or uni­ver­si­ty meets the edu­ca­tion cri­te­ria as estab­lished by the rel­e­vant agency. The two pri­ma­ry types of accred­i­ta­tion — region­al and spe­cial­ized, are dis­cussed below.

The process of accred­i­ta­tion offers prospec­tive stu­dents a for­mal­ized but inde­pen­dent review of com­pe­tence and offers a pub­lic recog­ni­tion of the school or program’s qual­i­ty and ongo­ing com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing the edu­ca­tion­al quality.

Regional Accreditation

Region­al accred­i­ta­tion is con­sid­ered the old­est accred­it­ing process that is over­seen by the US Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. The US high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem is divid­ed into six fun­da­men­tal region­al agen­cies. These CHEA-over­seen agen­cies (Coun­cil for High­er Edu­ca­tion Accred­i­ta­tion) review and ulti­mate­ly issue accred­i­ta­tion to the school, not a spe­cif­ic pro­gram or division/college with­in the larg­er school.

Region­al accred­i­ta­tion pro­vides poten­tial stu­dents a lev­el of cer­tain­ty as they con­sid­er post-sec­ondary options and is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion for stu­dents who may want to trans­fer cred­its to anoth­er school or apply to a master’s lev­el pro­gram after graduation.

Specialized Accreditation

Spe­cif­ic degree pro­grams, like an under­grad­u­ate degree in pub­lic health, can be accred­it­ed at the spe­cial­ized lev­el. Spe­cial­ized accred­i­ta­tion pro­vides stu­dents with an essen­tial assur­ance that the aca­d­e­m­ic degree offered by the school meets a pre-defined set of stan­dards, typ­i­cal­ly deter­mined by an indus­try over­sight board.

Pub­lic health pro­gram accred­i­ta­tion is pri­mar­i­ly man­aged by the CEPH — the Coun­cil on Edu­ca­tion for Pub­lic Health. Pub­lic health pro­gram accred­i­ta­tion is dis­cussed below, includ­ing the answer to the ques­tion – How impor­tant is CEPH accreditation?

The Council on Education for Public Health

Pub­lic health edu­ca­tion began in 1940 with the Amer­i­can Pub­lic health Asso­ci­a­tion (APHA). The CEPH was an off­shoot of the APHA but was even­tu­al­ly tasked with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of eval­u­at­ing schools and pub­lic health edu­ca­tion pro­grams. CEPH accred­i­ta­tion cri­te­ria were fur­ther devel­oped and refined in the late 1970s when CEPH asked edu­ca­tors and prac­ti­tion­ers to help rede­fine CEPH accred­i­ta­tion cri­te­ria for pub­lic health edu­ca­tion mov­ing for­ward. Ulti­mate­ly, the CEPH seeks to ensure the pub­lic health edu­ca­tion achieves a lev­el of excel­lence and qual­i­ty with regards to the prac­tice, ser­vice, and research in pub­lic health.

Types of Public Health Bachelor Degrees

Many pub­lic health bach­e­lor degree pro­grams open up the door to a wide vari­ety of job oppor­tu­ni­ties; how­ev­er, many stu­dents choose a pub­lic health degree or pub­lic health major as the first step towards a more advanced degree. Pub­lic health bach­e­lor degree pro­grams are avail­able through­out the coun­try. There are both qual­i­ty online pub­lic health degrees as well as pub­lic health degree pro­grams offered tra­di­tion­al­ly on-campus.

Most pub­lic health majors are enrolled in a university’s School of Pub­lic Health but are still required to com­plete gen­er­al edu­ca­tion require­ments in math­e­mat­ics, Eng­lish, and human­i­ties, among oth­ers, dur­ing the first two years of the student’s col­lege tenure when study­ing to earn a BS in Pub­lic Health. Oth­er course­work for one of the many online degree in pub­lic health pro­grams may be man­dat­ed to gain entrance into the school’s pub­lic health track, which may require class­es in biol­o­gy, Amer­i­can his­to­ry, read­ing and com­po­si­tion, and crit­i­cal think­ing, among others.

In the last two years of the degree pro­gram, a pub­lic health major enrolled in a pub­lic health degree pro­gram will begin to focus course­work from the pub­lic health bach­e­lor cur­ricu­lum. While some pub­lic health pro­grams may offer an aca­d­e­m­ic empha­sis with­in your select­ed major, stu­dents will typ­i­cal­ly take class­es in sta­tis­tics, dis­ease, epi­demi­ol­o­gy, & health pol­i­cy, to name a few.

A pub­lic health bach­e­lor cur­ricu­lum for a typ­i­cal BS in Pub­lic Health will include course­work, as follows –

• Pub­lic Health Theory.
• Pub­lic Health His­to­ry & Practice.
• Social & Behav­ioral Impacts on Epidemiology/Health.
• Envi­ron­men­tal Health.
• Health Pol­i­cy.
• Nutri­tion.
• Health­care Deliv­ery Systems.
• Com­mu­ni­ty Health Planning.
• Research method­ol­o­gy.
• Human Devel­op­ment.
• Epi­demi­ol­o­gy.
• Infec­tious Diseases.
• Grant Writ­ing.
• Pub­lic health Data Analysis.
• Bio­sta­tis­tics.
• Social Sci­ences, which may include soci­ol­o­gy, psy­chol­o­gy, or eco­nom­ics, among others.

Many pub­lic health major stu­dents enrolled in a BS in Pub­lic Health pro­gram com­plete the pub­lic health degree online or on-cam­pus with either a senior thesis/capstone project or an intern­ship in a relat­ed job. If the pub­lic health degree is offered by a School of Pub­lic Health is one of the many qual­i­ty, online pub­lic health degrees avail­able in the mar­ket­place, stu­dents can com­plete their practicum or intern­ship in a relat­ed job in the area in which they reside. Stu­dents enrolled in a degree in pub­lic health online or on-cam­pus are encour­aged to gain the ben­e­fit of hands-on expe­ri­ence earned through a super­vised internship.

Stu­dents inter­est­ed in apply­ing to a School of Pub­lic Health will find that there are these fun­da­men­tal types of on-cam­pus and online degree in pub­lic health pro­grams. These cam­pus-based on online pub­lic health degrees include –

• A Bach­e­lor of Arts (BA) degree in Pub­lic Health, which focus­es more on course­work relat­ed to social sciences.
• A Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence (BS) degree in Pub­lic health, which focus­es more on nat­ur­al or hard sciences.
• A BAS — a Bach­e­lor of Applied Sci­ence degree in Pub­lic health, which focus­es most­ly in course­work from a pub­lic health curriculum.

Most cam­pus-based pub­lic health pro­grams require four years to com­plete; how­ev­er, online degree in pub­lic health pro­grams often offer accel­er­at­ed deliv­ery options for inter­est­ed stu­dents. These fast-track degree in pub­lic health online options offer both con­ve­nience and flex­i­bil­i­ty as they pro­vide asyn­chro­nous learn­ing options for stu­dents with time lim­i­ta­tions. And these pub­lic health degree online options are often both accred­it­ed at the region­al and spe­cial­ized levels.

The major­i­ty of under­grad­u­ate stu­dents who earn a degree in pub­lic health online or on-cam­pus choose to pur­sue a more advanced degree – the MPH earn an advanced degree. A more advanced pub­lic health degree online will allow pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als to be qual­i­fied for posi­tions of lead­er­ship or research.

License & Certifications in Public Health

The deci­sion to earn one of the many cer­ti­fi­ca­tions for pub­lic health is an impor­tant career deci­sion. Earn­ing a pub­lic health cer­ti­fi­ca­tion requires a com­mit­ment as it includes a com­pre­hen­sive exam, plus man­dat­ed con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion require­ments to main­tain the pub­lic health certification.

The avail­abil­i­ty of pub­lic health cer­tifi­cates has recent­ly become quite com­pet­i­tive. As you con­sid­er your pub­lic health career, con­sid­er these avail­able cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in pub­lic health.

The Nation­al Com­mis­sion for Health Edu­ca­tion Cre­den­tial­ing (NCHEC)

Head­quar­tered in Penn­syl­va­nia and found­ed in the late 1980s, the Nation­al Com­mis­sion for Health Edu­ca­tion Cre­den­tial­ing (NCHEC) was devel­oped to pro­mote and improve the health of the pop­u­la­tion by main­tain­ing strict stan­dards to health edu­ca­tion cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es. The NCHEC — the Nation­al Com­mis­sion for Health Edu­ca­tion Cre­den­tial­ing pro­vides pro­fes­sion­als with two pub­lic health cer­tifi­cates options, as follows -

The Cer­ti­fied Health Edu­ca­tion Spe­cial­ist (CHES®)

The CHES pub­lic health cer­ti­fi­ca­tion spe­cial­ist was devel­oped for pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als who have just entered into the ear­ly stages of their careers. This cer­tifi­cate in pub­lic health requires appli­cants to pass a com­pre­hen­sive exam cov­er­ing sev­en areas of pub­lic health specialist’s respon­si­bil­i­ties. The sev­en areas of respon­si­bil­i­ty to earn this cer­tifi­cate of pub­lic health include –

• Needs Assess­ment & Health Education/Promotion Capacity.
• Health Edu­ca­tion Plan­ning & Promotion.
• The Imple­men­ta­tion and Pro­mo­tion of Health Education.
• Per­form Research & Eval­u­a­tions Relat­ed to the Pro­mo­tion and Imple­men­ta­tion of Health Education.
• Manage/Administer Health Edu­ca­tion & Promotion.
• Pro­vide Health Edu­ca­tion Resources.
• The Pro­fes­sion­al Health Edu­ca­tor and Promoter.

The Mas­ter Cer­ti­fied Health Edu­ca­tion Spe­cial­ist (MCHES®)

The MCHES cer­tifi­cate in pub­lic health edu­ca­tion was devel­oped for pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als who have just entered into the ear­ly stages of their career. The MCHES cer­tifi­cate of pub­lic health option was devel­oped for the advanced stand­ing pub­lic health prac­ti­tion­er. Appli­cants for this cer­tifi­cate in pub­lic health edu­ca­tion must have at least five years of pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence in the field of pub­lic health. To earn one of these cer­ti­fi­ca­tions for pub­lic health edu­ca­tion spe­cial­ists requires appli­cants to pass a com­pe­ten­cy exam and meet the con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion require­ments of this cer­tifi­cate of pub­lic health.

The Nation­al Board of Pub­lic Health Exam­in­ers (NBPHE)

Found­ed in 2005, the Nation­al Board of Pub­lic Health Exam­in­ers (NBPHE) oper­ates inde­pen­dent­ly, seek­ing to ensure pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als pos­sess the skills required to deliv­er con­tem­po­rary pub­lic health care. The NBPHE accom­plish­es its goals by offer­ing one of the avail­able cer­ti­fi­ca­tions for pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als in the mar­ket­place. The NBPHE’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tions for pub­lic health include the CPH cre­den­tial – the Cer­ti­fied in Pub­lic Health cer­tifi­cate. Appli­cants inter­est­ed in earn­ing one of the NBPHE’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tions for pub­lic health must also meet con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion require­ments to main­tain the certificate.

Careers in Public Health with a Bachelor’s Degree

For­tu­nate­ly, there is a wide vari­ety of Bach­e­lors in Pub­lic Health jobs from which to choose. As you con­sid­er the var­i­ous pub­lic health admin­is­tra­tor jobs and pub­lic health work­er jobs, ask your­self these rel­e­vant questions –

• Are there avail­able pub­lic health bach­e­lor degree jobs avail­able that meet your career goals?
• Are there pub­lic health bach­e­lors degree jobs that are avail­able internationally?
• Are there Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Pub­lic Health jobs that offer a com­pen­sa­tion pack­age that meet your requirements?
• Which BS in Pub­lic Health jobs pay the most?

The avail­able Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Pub­lic Health jobs are gen­er­al­ly defined by the loca­tion of the job. Pub­lic Health Admin­is­tra­tor jobs are avail­able in four work settings –

• Acad­e­mia, which often includes teach­ing or research.
• The Pub­lic Sec­tor, which may include gov­ern­ment work in health admin­is­tra­tion or nursing.
• The Non­prof­it Sec­tor, which includes work with pop­u­la­tion con­cerns or with a spe­cif­ic seg­ment of the population.
• The Pri­vate Sec­tor, which includes work in health­care insti­tu­tions, nurs­ing homes, hos­pi­tals, or insur­ance com­pa­nies, to name a few.

These are the main areas of pub­lic health –

• Pol­i­cy and Health Management.
• Social and Behav­ioral Health.
• Bio­sta­tis­tics and Health Informatics.
• Minor­i­ty Health.
• Epi­demi­ol­o­gy.
• Nutri­tion­al Health.
• Com­mu­ni­ty Health.
• Envi­ron­men­tal Health.
• Glob­al Health.
• Health Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Pub­lic Relations.
• Pedi­atric Health.

Bachelors in Public Health Jobs

The fol­low­ing offers stu­dents a glimpse at the many avail­able BS in Pub­lic health jobs -

A Health­care Admin­is­tra­tor man­ages health care agen­cies or facil­i­ties from a busi­ness per­spec­tive – to main­tain and pro­vide qual­i­ty health care to the public.

A Health Edu­ca­tor is an essen­tial part of the com­mu­ni­ty in which they live and work. As a health edu­ca­tor, a pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­al is tasked with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of edu­cat­ing the pub­lic with regard to liv­ing and main­tain­ing healthy lifestyle choic­es while amass­ing data that is used to make large health pol­i­cy decisions.

A Pub­lic Health Nurse pro­vides health ser­vices to mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty who may not have access to health care ser­vices at all. Pub­lic health nurs­es find reward­ing careers in occu­pa­tion­al facil­i­ties, state health depart­ments, and cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties, to name a few.

A Social Work­er advocates/facilitate for mem­bers of a com­mu­ni­ty or health care facil­i­ty – seek­ing to improve their client’s lives by offer­ing options for change, edu­ca­tion, and empowerment.

A Pub­lic Health Offi­cer enforces rel­e­vant health laws and acts as a liai­son between local com­mu­ni­ties and offi­cials work­ing at the state & fed­er­al lev­el regard­ing envi­ron­men­tal and pub­lic health issues.

Public Health Salary Potential

The fol­low­ing pub­lic health bach­e­lor degree salary reveals that there were more than 125,000 health edu­ca­tors and com­mu­ni­ty health work­ers employed in the Unit­ed States dur­ing 2019. The medi­an salary for health edu­ca­tors & com­mu­ni­ty health work­ers for 2020 was $48,140 each year, which trans­lates to $23.15 per hour, accord­ing to the BLS.

The fol­low­ing rep­re­sents the pub­lic health salary per­centiles for health edu­ca­tion spe­cial­ists -

The top pay­ing states for health edu­ca­tion spe­cial­ists are as follows –

The states that have the high­est lev­el of employ­ment for health edu­ca­tion spe­cial­ists are as follows –

The fol­low­ing rep­re­sents the pub­lic health salary per­centiles for com­mu­ni­ty health work­ers -

The top pay­ing states for com­mu­ni­ty health work­ers are as follows –

The high­est lev­el of employ­ment for com­mu­ni­ty health work­ers are in these states, as follows –

Oth­er Pub­lic Health Salary Jobs for Those With a Bac­calau­re­ate Degree

Professional Organizations for Public Health Students & Professionals

Pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions are devel­oped by indus­try experts and advo­cates to per­form as a sup­port and voice for the industry’s mem­ber com­pa­nies and pro­fes­sion­als. Pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als have a vari­ety of pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions from which to choose. Each of these pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions is ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing the pro­fes­sion­als in the par­tic­u­lar slice of the pub­lic health industry.

Pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions offer their mem­bers many ben­e­fits, which include –

• Job Boards.
• Awards & Recognition.
• Nation­al and Region­al Conferences/Seminars for members.
• Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion opportunities.
• Net­work­ing Opportunities.
• Pub­li­ca­tions & Oth­er Resources.
• Advo­ca­cy & sup­port, among others.

Pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als can join one of these pro­fes­sion­al organizations –

The Amer­i­can Pub­lic Health Asso­ci­a­tion (APHA)

Found­ed in ear­ly-1870s, the Amer­i­can Pub­lic Health Asso­ci­a­tion (APHA) holds the dis­tinc­tion of being both the old­est and the most diverse pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion devel­oped to sup­port pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als across the globe.

The Amer­i­can Epi­demi­ol­o­gy Soci­ety (APES)

The Amer­i­can Epi­demi­o­log­i­cal Soci­ety seeks to pro­vide a sci­en­tif­ic forum where senior epi­demi­ol­o­gists can share infor­ma­tion with oth­er mem­bers. Mem­ber­ship in the Amer­i­can Epi­demi­o­log­i­cal Soci­ety allows indi­vid­u­als to improve their pro­fes­sion­al exper­tise and hone their pro­fes­sion­al skills by inter­act­ing with oth­er mem­bers and pub­lic health peers.

The Amer­i­can Nurs­es Asso­ci­a­tion (ANA)

The Amer­i­can Nurs­es Asso­ci­a­tion (ANA) holds the dis­tinc­tion of being the only pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion in the Unit­ed States that was devel­oped to sup­port the pro­fes­sion­al inter­ests of the more than 3 mil­lion nurs­ing pro­fes­sion­als work­ing to keep the pop­u­la­tion safe and healthy. The Amer­i­can Nurs­es Association’s mis­sion is to advance the nurs­ing pro­fes­sion in a num­ber of impor­tant ways.

The Soci­ety for Pub­lic Health Edu­ca­tion (SPHE)

Found­ed in the ear­ly-1950s, the Soci­ety for Pub­lic Health Edu­ca­tion (SOPHE) oper­ates as a non­prof­it pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion pro­vid­ing glob­al lead­er­ship to mem­bers of the health edu­ca­tion pro­fes­sion. The Soci­ety for Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion accom­plish­es its orga­ni­za­tion­al objec­tives by –

• Per­form­ing rel­e­vant research regard­ing health edu­ca­tion the­o­ries and practice.
• Advo­cat­ing for ben­e­fi­cial pol­i­cy stan­dards and leg­isla­tive efforts that impact health pro­mo­tion and edu­ca­tion positively.
• Devel­op­ing & main­tain­ing pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards for edu­cat­ing health professionals.
• Sup­port­ing qual­i­ty in per­for­mance in the areas of health pro­mo­tion and health education.

The Soci­ety for Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion is rec­og­nized as the only pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion that oper­ates inde­pen­dent­ly and is devot­ed exclu­sive­ly to sup­port­ing the fields of health edu­ca­tion & health pro­mo­tion across var­i­ous settings.

The Asso­ci­a­tion for Pro­fes­sion­als in Infec­tion Con­trol & Epi­demi­ol­o­gy (APICE)

The Asso­ci­a­tion for Pro­fes­sion­als in Infec­tion Con­trol & Epi­demi­ol­o­gy (APICE) is con­sid­ered among the lead­ing pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tions for pro­fes­sion­al infec­tion pre­ven­tion­ists. APICE’s mem­ber­ship exceeds 13,500, with each mem­ber advo­cat­ing for the cre­ation of a safer world in which to live by pre­vent­ing the spread of infec­tion. APICE seeks to pro­vide the world with bet­ter health care and the most afford­able prices.

The Nation­al Envi­ron­men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion (NEHA)

This Nation­al Envi­ron­men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion (NEHA) oper­ates as a pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion to sup­port envi­ron­men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als and to estab­lish an indus­try stan­dard of excel­lence. NEHA’s stan­dard is now pro­fes­sion­al­ly offered as the reg­is­tered cre­den­tial ‑The REHS – the Reg­is­tered Envi­ron­men­tal Health Spe­cial­ist cer­tifi­cate. Those pro­fes­sion­als who hold an REHS cre­den­tial have demon­strat­ed that they have the skills and knowl­edge of an envi­ron­men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al and will be expect­ed to per­form excep­tion­al­ly in the envi­ron­men­tal health field.

Relat­ed Rankings: 

25 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Pub­lic Health

15 Best Online Bach­e­lor’s in Pub­lic Health

10 Fastest Online Bach­e­lor’s in Pub­lic Health

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Pub­lic Health