What Kinds of Classes Will I Take In a Masters in Public Health Program?

A master's in public health is a great way to open up your career for more opportunities and prepare yourself for a leadership role in your community or state, or even as part of a national organization devoted to public health. Because the field focuses on preventive care and maximizing community effectiveness, those are the kinds of classes you'll take to earn your degree.

Almost all students working toward a master's in public health will wind up taking the same kinds of introductory courses to a variety of fields under the larger umbrella of public health. For instance, classes in applied epidemiology (the study of how disease spreads through and affects a population) and biostatistics (the interpretation of data for biological studies) are guaranteed to be a part of any legitimate master's program in public health. The point isn't to provide you with redundant information, or to force you to take a class you might not be interested in. Rather, all aspects of public health work blend together and affect each other, and even though you might not be specializing in a given area, it's still necessary to have a working knowledge of it and understand how it works with your particular specialty.

Other classes common to most master's programs include introductions to the health care system and the way it's applied to communities across the nation. You'll also take biology courses that emphasize public health and safety, as well as classes devoted to ethics in the work environment. These are all great classes to take and integral to understanding the role of public health in today's world.

In addition, you'll take multiple classes in an area of your choosing that will be your specialty or focus. For instance, some master's programs offer specialties in health education. That means that in addition to your groundwork courses, you'll also take classes devoted to health laws in the United States, methods of communication and instruction in health habits, and explorations of cultural and ethnic diversity in different communities and how that can contribute to a discrepancy in health standards. Similarly, a focus in epidemiology means you'll take classes that dig deeper into the effects of disease on a community, including how to work to keep the public safe from different strands of infections and what public health looks like from a global perspective.

The classes offered in a masters program in public cover a variety of topics, but they also offer a depth of instruction designed to advance your career and make you a leader in the field.