Online Public Health Master's Degree
Overview
The cost of healthcare is soaring, due in no small part to unhealthy lifestyles (see: smoking, obesity), which can lead to costly ailments such as diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer. Public health professionals are leading the charge to reverse that trend, and an online master’s in public health can give students the necessary tools by preparing them to take active roles in research and policy development, as well as education and prevention efforts.
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Coursework
| Potential specializations | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reproductive health | |||||||||
| Infectious disease | |||||||||
| Environmental health | |||||||||
| Biostatistics | |||||||||
| Public health management and policy | |||||||||
| Clinical research | |||||||||
| Health policy and law | |||||||||
The core curriculum for most online master’s in public health programs blends research with practical application and includes courses such as environmental health, occupational safety, biostatistics, and epidemiology, which studies the transmission and control of epidemics and infectious diseases. Due to the nature of the coursework, some programs require that students have prior work experience in a health-related field.
Since public health is a broad field of study, most master’s programs offer degree concentration areas to allow students to narrow their focus. Common concentrations include infectious diseases, health in crisis and humanitarian assistance, reproductive health, epidemiology, and public health management and policy.
Job Outlook
| Median salaries* | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health educator, nonprofit | $40,400 | ||||||||
| Nutritionist | $53,250 | ||||||||
| Health educator, hospital | $58,500 | ||||||||
| Environmental scientist | $61,700 | ||||||||
| Epidemiologist, college or university | $62,000 | ||||||||
| Biostatistician | $69,900 | ||||||||
| Medical scientist | $76,700 | ||||||||
| Epidemiologist, pharmaceuticals | $93,000 | ||||||||
*per the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook
Graduates with a master’s degree in public health can travel down a variety of different career paths, including research, teaching, advocacy, and even politics, and work anywhere from a high school classroom to a government agency or third-world country.
Students who go on to work as health educators at a civic or nonprofit organization can expect to see a median salary of roughly $40,400, while those who do so in a hospital setting earn a median salary of nearly $58,500. The median salary for graduates who work as epidemiologists at a college or university is nearly $62,000. That figure climbs to nearly $93,000 if they work for a pharmaceutical company, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
