Abstract
Examine the distribution of the Council of Education in Public Health (CEPH)-accredited institutions offering public health educational programs in the United States, and characterize their various attributes. A search was conducted during the period of June 2014, using the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health database (ASPPH), and individual university websites to obtain a complete list of CEPH-accredited institutions offering programs in public health at the Certificate, Masters, and Doctoral levels in the United States. Detailed information were abstracted from the various programs offerings, including school/program information, school type, geographic location, admission cycle, education delivery format, public health concentration, number of credits, presence of a global component, joint programs, and tuition. These data were analyzed in August 2014. A total of 85 CEPH-accredited institutions designated as either "Schools of Public Health" or individual "Programs of Public Health" were present in the ASPPH database at the time of this data collection (2014). These institutions offer programs in public health at the Certificate (61%, n = 52), Masters (100%, n = 85), and Doctoral (44%, n = 37) levels in the United States. More than half of the programs offered were provided by schools of public health (58%, n = 49), which were mostly public universities (75%, n = 64), concentrated in the Northeast (22%, n = 19) and mainly admitted students during the fall semester. Ninety-three concentrations of public health currently exist, of which 25 concentrations are predominant. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that examines the distribution of existing CEPH-accredited public health educational programs offered by United States institutions. We suggest future areas of research to assess existing public health workforce demands, and map them to the curriculums and competencies provided by institutions offering public health educational programs in the United States. This could provide valuable insight on the extent to which public health curriculums are meeting workforce demands.
Highlights
Public health has been described as “the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, promoting health and well-being through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, control of communicable infections, organization of medical and nursing services, early diagnosis and prevention of disease, education of the individual in personal health, and the development of the social machinery to assure everyone a standard of living adequate for the maintenance or improvement of health” [1]
A search was conducted during the period of June 2014, using the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health database (ASPPH), and individual university websites to obtain a complete list of Council of Education in Public Health (CEPH)-accredited institutions offering programs in public health at the Certificate, Masters, and Doctoral levels in the United States
A complete list of 85 CEPH-accredited institutions designated as either “Schools of Public Health” (58%, n = 49) or individual “Programs of Public Health” (42%, n = 36) offering public health programs at the Certificate, Masters, and Doctoral levels in the United States were present in the ASPPH database at the time of this data collection (Figure 1)
Summary
Public health has been described as “the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, promoting health and well-being through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, control of communicable infections, organization of medical and nursing services, early diagnosis and prevention of disease, education of the individual in personal health, and the development of the social machinery to assure everyone a standard of living adequate for the maintenance or improvement of health” [1]. Public health professionals constitute individuals trained in a variety of occupational settings and could include physicians, engineers, statisticians, educators, or even communication experts since the broad scope of public health requires a diverse workforce of professionals [5, 6]. Majority of these individuals may have not acquired formal training in public health, but they possess an array of public health expertise from their disparate work domains. The relevance of academic institutions, types of programs, specific program concentrations and other attributes are critical in assuring an informed workforce [6]
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