These concentrations can be helpful for your career
You are going to work hard for your masterās degree. Your master’s degree should be just as demanding. Goodwin University’s Master’s in Public Health program (MPH) offers three concentrations that will help you to take control of your professional life.
Core courses such as Principles of Epidemiology, Research Methods and Biostatistics are required to complete this program. This will give you 33 credits. This rich curriculum equips students with fundamental knowledge and skills in policy and public health leadership. However, nine of the last nine credits of the MPH degree are focused on a public health concentration. Students can choose a concentration that aligns with their goals for their careers in public health. There are many long-term benefits to public health professionals who have the specific, applicable experience in each focus area.
This page is for you if you’re interested in an MPH degree or the public health concentrations that are available through the masters program. Below is a breakdown of the three MPH concentrations offered online by Goodwin University.
Community Health
If you are interested in implementing health programs or interacting with the public, the Community Health concentration might be for you. You could work as a director for a non profit, a local policymaker, or as a public health educator. Work in community health might be found at hospitals, community centres, or other government agencies at either the state, local, or federal levels. The following courses are designed to help build the necessary skills:
- Community Health Sciences
- Evaluation for Community Health Program Planning, Research and Evaluation
- Urban Health and Social Policy
These individuals are able to combine their interpersonal and communication skills with knowledge of public policy and research methods. This public health career path is most relevant to social sciences because the cultural makeup and needs of each target community will directly influence public health intervention plans. During the COVID-19 pandemic’s first Summer, the Association of American Medical Colleges published an article highlighting the critical role of community health workers in providing a link between individuals and medical facilities that can prove lifesaving. Access to community health services is easier than that of healthcare workers. This means that people can get faster care for those in acutely serious situations, and, hopefully, more often, preventive services are available through strong networks of community health.
The community health program helps people avoid the hospital by encouraging healthy choices and connecting them to the services they require. You could become a Medical and Health Services Manager with an MPH and a focus in community health.
Global Health
You might find the global health concentration in the MPH degree exciting if you are interested in tackling major health issues in developing countries. You’ll be enrolled in these classes as part of the Goodwin University global health track.
- Global Health Issues
- Global Health Program Planning
- Global Health: Essentials of Economics and Finance
People who work in global healthcare are motivated by the possibility to defend human rights for those most at risk. Global health professionals are also interested in reducing barriers to healthcare accessibility, funding healthcare programs, education, and ensuring sustainability of healthcare provision. You might be familiar with names like Doctors Without Borders (Doctors Without Borders), the World Bank and The World Health Organization. They are also among the most important global health providers. Their mission and projects might be of interest to global health students.
Like most health-related careers, global health allows one to choose to work on the ground with service recipients (e.g., an Emergency Management Director) or data collection in a research setting (e.g., an Epidemiologist). You should consider whether traveling and working long hours abroad make more sense to you than time in a laboratory or using computer modeling programs.
Management and Policy for Health
While public health professionals may witness change in person, it is the health policy and management managers who set up the budgets and laws that allow public systems to function. You will receive training in health policy and administration at Goodwin University. This includes courses in economics and public health law.
- U.S. Policy and Health Economics
- Public Health Law
- Public Health Policy as a Prevention Strategy
This concentration in MPH prepares public health professionals to work in non-profit and government settings. Policy-making could be a rewarding career for those who are passionate about advocacy work and judicial reform. The CDC policy creation process involves continuous evaluation. These five steps are: problem identification and analysis, strategy development and policy development, policy enactment, policy enactment, implementation, and strategy. For the CDC, and other public health policymakers like it to be able to get funding and allocate resources, they must show the stakeholders the importance of each step. These are the skills that someone working in public health policy or management will need on a day to day basis.
Additional Resource:
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/