This major, unique among colleges in this region, prepares you to go directly into a public health career or to pursue a master’s of public health (MPH) or an advanced degree in a health care profession.
Public health teaches you to tackle health issues at the population level, learning how the environment, media, government policies, and health care delivery systems affect health. This program works well as a double major with programs such as anthropology or business and you can add valuable skills with a minor such as analytics.
Local and global internships and experiential learning opportunities show you first-hand how systems influence health. Examples:
Nazareth students traveled to a Belize clinic to teach health literacy and learn.
Students helped with a Rochester community project to give unused medical supplies and donated equipment to clinics in needy countries.
Helping homeless gypsies or low-income elderly adults in Finland
Week-long trips to Ireland or Hungary enable students to compare health care delivery systems, as part of a health care delivery course.
One student project exposed the problem of bedbugs in elder care while another compared driving while intoxicated prosecution rates in two local counties, pointing out flaws in the system for protecting public health.
Nazareth students have opportunities to initiate a project and build connections with people around the world through Clinton Global Initiative University.
Nazareth's breadth of course offerings enable you to design your own concentration. Available areas of focus include:
Advocacy and health literacy
Bioethics
Environmental issues
Gender and health
Health entrepreneurship, such as setting up a program or non-profit effort to give voice to a segment of the community
History, government, and public health practice
This course provides an overview of public health which cuts across fields of politics, economics, communication, sociology, history and healthcare. Approaches to improve health through education, advocacy, and legislation will be reviewed in relation to the continually evolving challenges in public health.
Epidemiology is intended to provide an overview of concepts dealing with how we study the distribution of diseases and their causes in populations. The emphasis will be on putting epidemiologic data in context so that participants can become better consumers of health data, at the personal and community level and as an engaged citizen.
This course offers an introduction to the principles of health promotion and literacy. Students will be prepared to understand the components of health promotion, the historical, philosophical and theoretical foundations of health promotion, and the challenges related to changing human behavior. Students will examine program planning, particularly in the context of low health literacy. Open to PBH majors/minors; others need departmental approval.