黑料视频

December 22, 2024
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New Master of Public Health Program to admit students for fall 2018

Collaborative program spans disciplines, schools

Public health encompasses much more than healthy eating habits and exercise. 黑料视频's new Master of Public Health program will prepare students to explore complex public health issues and collaborate to create healthier communities. Public health encompasses much more than healthy eating habits and exercise. 黑料视频's new Master of Public Health program will prepare students to explore complex public health issues and collaborate to create healthier communities.
Public health encompasses much more than healthy eating habits and exercise. 黑料视频's new Master of Public Health program will prepare students to explore complex public health issues and collaborate to create healthier communities. Image Credit: Jonathan Cohen.

黑料视频 announces a new graduate degree program, the Master of Public Health (MPH), which will begin to admit students for fall 2018. 鈥淭he MPH is designed to prepare graduates to analyze complex public health issues and to work collaboratively to create healthier communities,鈥 said Yvonne Johnston, the founding director of the new MPH Program at 黑料视频.

Johnston, an associate professor, along with a team of people have been working for more than a year to develop the program. 鈥淚nitially, the program will offer a generic master鈥檚 degree in which students may choose electives in global or population health. Eventually, we would love to be able to develop these course sequences into specific concentrations,鈥 Johnston said.

Each sequence of three courses will address health concepts and measures, determinants and disparities, and strategies and policies so that students develop similar skill sets whether they plan to work in local or international settings. These courses, along with a topics course, will help students to understand the social, cultural and environmental contexts that impact health and to develop evidence-based solutions for critical public health problems.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a local and global approach to what we鈥檙e trying to do,鈥 Johnston said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to build public health capacity in the state. I鈥檝e been working with the Broome County Health Department for over 15 years, and I know there are a lot of people who would love to have a public health degree, but access to programs has been an issue.

鈥淲e also have a diverse faculty with expertise in international health who understand the unique challenges posed by working in other countries that have different health systems, population needs and resources,鈥 she said.

At the core of the public health discipline is epidemiology. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a way of looking at health-related data and information,鈥 Johnston said. 鈥淭he American Public Health Association is one of the largest professional health associations. It covers a broad range of disciplines and is inclusive of all health professions, and yet the scientific methods are very much the same. So the MPH provides you with a skill set for how to analyze and solve health problems at a population level 鈥 that means something to an employer.

鈥淚鈥檝e been very fortunate to be selected as director,鈥 Johnston said, adding that she loved spearheading the curriculum development, calling it the easy part of the program鈥檚 development. 鈥淭his is an interprofessional and interdisciplinary type of degree that will be attractive for nutritionists, dentists, doctors, nurses and social workers, as well as anthropologists, psychologists, statisticians and engineers. You can take public health and put it with just about anything because everything can relate back to your health.鈥

As a result, the MPH should appeal to a broad range of student interests and can lead to a variety of careers in public health, including state and local health departments, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and community-based health and human service agencies. Careers in the private sector will be found in industries such as insurance, pharmaceuticals, informatics and communications. 鈥淵ou name it,鈥 Johnston said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to improve public health competencies across the board so that when decisions are being made, the ramifications to public health are always considered.鈥

Johnston鈥檚 hope is that the program, which is expected to enroll about 25 students in its first class, will grow to become a department and, one day, perhaps a school. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a good fit with what we鈥檙e trying to start here and [with] 黑料视频鈥檚 goal of developing a college of health sciences.鈥

Those interested in the MPH can find more information and apply online.

Posted in: Campus News