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North American schools of public health
For international students who want to become part of the solution to providing better health for all people, the field of public health offers excitement and challenges. Students with interests in health administration, prevention, the bench sciences, and the social sciences, as well as those students committed to improving the health of international populations will find that public health offers a rewarding career journey.
Global health concerns such as AIDS, bio-terrorism, avian bird flu, SARS, malnutrition and global warming have significantly increased awareness and understanding of the critical importance of public health in our society. Consequently, the curiosity in pursuing a career in public health has increased steadily over the past decade. In the US, this new era is evidenced by significant increases in the number of applications to schools of public health. During the period 1994-2004, when applications to US medical schools declined precipitously, the number of applications to US schools of public health doubled (see Table 1 & 2). In addition, while the number of new US medical schools remained relatively constant, the number of newly established schools of public health increased from 27 to 38 (ASPH & AAMC, 2006).
Table 1
Table 2
At most schools of public health there are several concentrations to choose from including biostatistics, environmental health, epidemiology, health education, health law, industrial hygiene, international health and development, maternal and child heath, nutrition, social and behavioral sciences, toxicology, tropical medicine and parasitology.
Public health students come from a wide array of academic backgrounds, including the biological sciences and pre-med, psychology, anthropology, economics, and women’s studies to name a few.
Students with strong backgrounds in the social sciences bring valuable skill sets to disciplines such as health education and promotion as well as international health and development.
Those with knowledge of the natural sciences contribute significantly in fields such as environmental health and epidemiology, while students with quantitative and organizational strengths often excel in biostatistics and health systems management.
Very often international public health programs are based on the assumption that a profound understanding of the multi-layered and multi-disciplinary nature of public health problems is the basis for successful public health leadership.
Many degree programs are therefore strong on interdisciplinary interaction and maintain an interdisciplinary flavour designed to equip students with the analytical and practical tools needed to understand the ways in which societal, cultural, psychological, bureaucratic, economic and political processes affect health, illness and adequate health care delivery.
Relevant analytical tools are borrowed from a variety of disciplines such as methodology and statistics, epidemiology, sociology, social and cultural anthropology, social psychology, political science, economics and the science of management and organisation. Students learn how to utilise these tools to perform sound problem analysis and to ground appropriate health care policy as well as adequate health care interventions on the results of such analysis.
Effective public health professionals also rely on a variety of practical skills that enable them to realise the public health policies and interventions they deem necessary. Metaphorically they have to be able to function as a Swiss pocket knight. For this reason students are taught how to plan, implement, monitor, evaluate and adjust programmes, policies and interventions, but also how to identify, recruit, involve, commit, and guide stakeholders operating at the different levels (from international organisation to the people in the communities’ streets) of the health care system. To achieve this, public health experts have to be able to communicate effectively with a diverse circle of professionals in academia, politics, bureaucracies and field organisations.
A myriad of job opportunities are available for public health professionals ranging from health administration to epidemiology, and from program management to laboratory research.
Many public health programs emphasise the development of leadership and expertise in the broad fields of research, education and service with the aim to deliver graduates who are able to effectively apply relevant theoretical models and concepts to public health issues and, vice versa, to reflect upon theoretical developments on the basis of practical experience in the field. Because the subject area is an academic as well as a practice-oriented endeavour, it requires public health professionals to act as linking-pins between theory and practice, politics and people, and science and everyday life.
