Master of Public Health

The master of public health degree will be offered online at UW-Eau Claire beginning in the fall of 2024.

Our program is a professional graduate degree designed to prepare you to effectively improve the health of people and communities by preventing disease, illness and injury. Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and our communities. This work is achieved by promoting healthy lifestyles; researching disease and injury prevention; and preventing, detecting, and responding to infectious, chemical, and physical diseases. This includes improvements in social determinants of health, the built environment, and policy changes in public and private settings. The interdisciplinary field of public health draws on natural, quantitative, social and behavioral sciences to study both the distribution of human health and disease as well as interventions to promote health and wellbeing.

After earning your degree, you'll have the expertise to confidently develop, plan and manage programs or interventions to promote population health. Additionally, you'll have improved skills in leadership, communication and advocacy.

With this degree, you can begin a career in one of the most rapidly growing fields of employment as a public health professional. You could also incorporate a public health perspective into your current profession (e.g., medicine, dentistry, nursing, law, business, urban planning, environmental health), or elevate your working status to a supervisory role. You'll acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to solve the complex problems that threaten population health and wellbeing worldwide. Doors will open to work at federal, state, and local health agencies, hospitals, nonprofits, community-based agencies, private foundations and health maintenance organizations.

The rigorous curriculum includes standards indicated by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) as well as incorporating skills and knowledge seen in current public health practice. The applied practice experience is key piece of the program, giving students the opportunity to apply public health principles and theories learned in MPH courses and to demonstrate public health competencies in a practice setting. In addition to enriching your opportunities to gain “real world” experience, you'll also foster relationships among the public health community, building connections and future employment opportunities. An integrated learning experience asks students to synthesize and apply their public health knowledge acquired during coursework and their applied practice experience into a comprehensive paper outlining their recommendations for solving a current public health problem.

What classes do master of public health students take?

Your classes may cover topics like:

• Health and climate change
• Epidemiology
• Rural health and systems
• Biostatistics
• Social and behavioral health
• Program planning and evaluation

1. Overall undergraduate GPA of 3.0 at the time of application and matriculation into the program.
2. Three letters of recommendation – at least one letter must testify to the integrity (i.e., professionalism, communication skills, work ethic) of the student.
3. International students must meet the following English Language Test score requirements for graduate programs:
   • TOEFL (PBT): 550, TOEFL (iBT): 75, IELTS: 7.0, Academic PTE: 65.
4. A Statement of Purpose (750-word limit).

Application does not constitute acceptance into the program nor is acceptance guaranteed simply upon satisfactory completion of requirements. Exceptions to the requirements can be made upon recommendation by the MPH Program Application Committee. All UW–Eau Claire graduate studies policies will be followed in the admissions process.

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