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Department of Public Health

Faculty

Valerie Leiter, Professor and Chair of Public Health and Director of the Bachelor's Program in Public Health

Leigh Haynes, Associate Professor of Practice and Director of the Master of Public Health Program

Dawna M. Thomas, Professor and Chair of Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Dolores Wolongevicz, Associate Professor of Practice and Director of the Health Professions Education Program

Kristen Brewer, Assistant Professor

Overview

This department provides a unique and challenging educational experience for students who wish to combine an interdisciplinary liberal arts education with a specialty focus on public health. The major provides conceptual foundations and empirical bases for analyzing the interplay between science, society, and health, and prepares students for a variety of public health careers. Undergraduate majors also have the option to pursue accelerated programs toward graduate students in public health or nutrition. The minor provides students with an opportunity to augment their specialty education with this broad perspective. There is a rising demand for public health professionals, due to increased global concerns regarding infectious and chronic disease epidemiology, food and water safety, sanitation, and environmental health issues as well as health inequities. Public health professionals have excellent employment prospects, as researchers, community health workers, and health program managers.

Learning Outcomes

The Public Health department has identified the following essential public health domains as learning outcomes for our undergraduate majors:

  • Address the history and philosophy of public health as well as its core values, concepts and functions across the globe and in society
  • Address the basic concepts, methods, and tools of public health data collection, use and analysis and why evidence-based approaches are an essential part of public health practice
  • Address the concepts of population health, and the basic processes, approaches and interventions that identify and address the major health-related needs and concerns of populations
  • Address the underlying science of human health and disease including opportunities for promoting and protecting health across the life course
  • Address the cultural, socio-economic, behavioral, biological, environmental and other factors that impact human health and contribute to health disparities
  • Address the fundamental concepts and features of project implementation, including planning, assessment and evaluation
  • Address the fundamental characteristics and organizational structures of the U.S. health system as well as to the differences between systems in other countries
  • Address the basic concepts of legal, ethical, economic, and regulatory dimensions of health care and public health policy and the roles, influences, and responsibilities of the different agencies and branches of government.
  • Address the basic concepts of public health-specific communication, including technical and professional writing and the use of mass media and electronic technology.

Departmental Honors

A graduating senior in the department of Public Health can earn Department Honors based on either one of the following criteria:

  1. A cumulative GPA of 3.7 or above and successfully completed a thesis
  2. A cumulative GPA of 3.7 or above and undertaken significant engagement with service to public health, beyond the required credit-bearing service-learning courses and internships