Employment prospect for MPH?

juillet
Sun, 10 Mar 2013 01:51:07 +0000

It depends on what you get the MPH in.

Job opportunities in epidemiology and biostatistics are great. Quantitative skills are in high demand these days. University medical centers, hospitals, health insurance companies and other health-related organizations are always going to need biostatisticians to analyze their data and seek patterns, and right now statistics and data are booming. The entry-level degree in this field is an MS, and a student would at minimum need two semesters of calculus and a semester of linear algebra to be a good candidate. Three semesters of calculus, linear algebra, and an intro class in statistics and probability would be more competitive.

Epidemiology is a good choice, too - it’s a blend of the quantitative stuff and disease surveillance. Lots of health departments and hospitals hire epidemiologists.

I don’t know as much about environmental health sciences, but with the shift towards green everything, sustainability and the increasing climate change/environmental change issues I’m thinking it’s a bigger issue now. My last roommate was an EHS MPH graduate and she now works at this company: [About CIET :: CIET Building the community voice into planning](http://www.ciet.org/en/about-ciet/)

Health policy and management is a toss-up; it depends on what you do. If you choose a management track and get some internship experience, then it can be a very lucrative path into healthcare administration. The more policy side may be a bit more difficult to get jobs in; that’s more like NGO, government work and those jobs are scarce and competitive.

And last we come to my field, the social and behavioral sciences in public health. Really, this also depends on your skills and interests. The lowest salaries in our field are in this area, and in my personal experience, the MPH grads I was friends with who majored in this area took the longest to find jobs. They’re doing things like health promotion, social science research with the department of health, health education, outreach, project coordinating. I think the salaries are in the mid-$30K to mid-$50K range depending. But I mean, you can break out. For example, I have significant statistical skills so when I was looking for MA-level jobs (I have an MA in public health, not an MPH) I was looking at jobs that would’ve paid in the $50-60K range. You could go into consulting and easily make more than that. Another roommate of mine did a dual MPH/MPA in the social and behavioral sciences in public health and is working as a consultant at a major firm in DC; I’m pretty sure she’s making at least $70K.

Other options to consider for a health-interested kid with a bio major looking at other options:

-Bioinformatics. Very in-demand field!
-Nurse practitioner. Nurse anesthetists make, on average, $158,000 a year. They can easily begin at six figures. Even other kinds of NPs can average $80-90K starting out If he’s pre-med with a bio major, he likely has the majority of the prerequisites and could apply for a 3-year BSN/MSN program or could apply for an accelerated 1-year BSN and then a regular 2-year MSN. NPs are in pretty high demand, especially with a shortage of primary care doctors and even specialists willing to work in high-demand areas.
-Physicians assistant, although he would need to get at least 1,000 hours of direct patient care experience.
-Genetic counselor.
-Physical or occupational therapist.