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Public Health Sciences

What is it?

Public Health Sciences is a general term given to a wide array of population health related fields including Health Administration, Public Health, Health Policy and Epidemiology.  Epidemiology is possibly one the most well known disciplines in Public Health Sciences. Epidemiology is the study of determinants of health in a large population. For example, epidemiologists investigate the effect of diet or drugs on the risk of different cancers.


Academic Programs

  • MHA- This is a two year degree that focuses on health administration. The curriculum is focused on financial and administrative aspects of health.
     
  • MPH- This is usually a one year program in Public Health Sciences offered mainly in the United States and Canada. Some programs such as the one offered by Harvard allow students to choose different streams. Those with interest in quantitative fields have the option of choosing the stream with a stress on quantitative methods.
     
  • MSC (Epidemiology)- Most Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology programs offer a two year MSC degrees. The program usually involves a year of didactics and one year of research which leads to a thesis defense.
     
  • Ph.D- Most programs that offer Health Administration, Public Health or Epidemiology offer Ph.D degrees. However, Ph.D in more Epidemiology is probably the most common Ph.D degree amongst the three. Harvard University also offers a Doctor of Public Health degree as well as the Doctor of Science (ScD) degree in Epidemiology.
     

Career opportunities

Public Health Sciences especially Epidemiology is one of the most sought after  programs in the health care field. Epidemiologists with Ph.D training can find careers in industry, government and academia. In the older days, epidemiologists mainly focused their work on researching and identifying patterns of diseases mostly infectious diseases. In the last twenty years Epidemiology has branched off in different areas of Health Care. Epidemiologists are also  involved in research that deals with identify risk factors of diseases, evaluate outcomes with different interventions (drugs, tests, procedures) in large populations or explore patterns of use of different exposures in a population. Epidemiology like many other disciplines has its sub-specialities including Pharmacoepidemiology, Health Outcomes, Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Environmental Epidemiology.

 It is for you if:

  • You are interested in pursuing a research career
  • You are a quantitative person interested in health related research
  • You are interested in working with physicians in answering health related research questions