Pursuing an Undergraduate Public Health Education

Recently, more and more undergraduate programs within the United States have started to offer introductory public health courses. These courses provide an overview of topics such as: behavioral health, biostatistics, environmental and occupational health, epidemiology, ethics, and health policy and administration.

Introductory public health courses:

• Provide students a “taste” of public health;
• Put public health topics within a context of population-based issues and health; and,
• Emphasize health issues that affect society as a whole as well as those that affect vulnerable populations.

Being exposed to public health as an undergraduate allows students to gain an appreciation for the discipline while increasing the likelihood of that student pursuing graduate level public health studies. Public health undergraduate education is also a logical foundation for postgraduate studies such as law, business, human services, and international affairs.

• Podcast from CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding: Preparing Students to be Good and Healthy Citizens in the 21st Century
• An ASPH-compiled list of undergraduate public health courses and programs
  
•   Several ASPH-member schools of public health now include applications to their undergraduate public health programs through the Schools of Public Health Application Service (SOPHAS)
  
• Public health programs (internships, summer programs, etc.) for undergraduates
• Consensus Conference Report 2006
• MMWR Notice on the 2006 Consensus Conference, MMWR Weekly October 19, 2007
• CEPH Undergraduate Technical Assistance Paper
• ASPH Undergraduate Public Health Survey 2006
• ASPH Undergraduate Public Health Education Survey 2005
• Undergraduate Education in CEPH Accredited Programs, presented at the 2004 APHA Annual Meeting