Master of Public Health (MPH)
In our innovative MPH program, you’ll work on tomorrow’s health solutions today.
Oakland University's Master of Public Health turns the whole community into your classroom. You’ll tackle real-world public health challenges through our MPH degree’s unique community-based participatory research model, working face to face with local residents, public health officials, nonprofit advocates, and health care providers. This hands-on approach lets you serve the community while you’re earning your MPH degree, making a real difference in public health and well-being. Our MPH program cultivates outstanding communicators, collaborators, and problem-solvers who excel in multicultural settings and are comfortable with advanced data. Demand for all of these skills is rising sharply, making our MPH degree a powerful first step toward a public health career in research, advocacy, education, administration, care delivery, or a related field.
Oakland University's Master of Public Health turns the whole community into your classroom. You’ll tackle real-world public health challenges through our MPH degree’s unique community-based participatory research model, working face to face with local residents, public health officials, nonprofit advocates, and health care providers. This hands-on approach lets you serve the community while you’re earning your MPH degree, making a real difference in public health and well-being. Our MPH program cultivates outstanding communicators, collaborators, and problem-solvers who excel in multicultural settings and are comfortable with advanced data. Demand for all of these skills is rising sharply, making our MPH degree a powerful first step toward a public health career in research, advocacy, education, administration, care delivery, or a related field.
MPH Degree: The Oakland University Advantage
Our extensive partnerships in Southeast Michigan create unique opportunities for students in our MPH degree. You’ll interact with and learn from a wide range of public health stakeholders, acquiring an exceptionally broad perspective that equips you for all kinds of public health careers. Oakland University’s medical school adds further value to our MPH program, providing you with access to medical experts, data, clinics, and research opportunities.
In addition, our MPH degree stands out for its strengths in:
- Diversity and social justice. Our MPH program allows you to work with people of all types, including low-income families, immigrants, people of color, children, and other populations who lack equal access to health care. You’ll have opportunities to help organize, educate, and empower these communities, acquiring skills that many MPH degrees neglect.
- Applied research. We require 16 credits of research-oriented coursework in our MPH degree, including a capstone project consisting of supervised, self-directed research. Many MPH students exceed these requirements and engage in extracurricular research, working independently or in collaboration with faculty and/or public health professionals off campus.
- Results-oriented expertise. You’ll acquire practical tools in our MPH program, using an evidence-based approach that helps you solve problems and maximize health benefits. By the time you complete the MPH degree, you’ll know how to assess community capacities, identify needs, evaluate programs, measure outcomes, and design new solutions.
- Faculty engagement. Instructors in our MPH program are immersed in the community as researchers, consultants, and collaborators. Their connections can help you get involved in research projects, service-learning activities, professional internships, and other opportunities that can put your public health career on the fast track.
- Rigorous academics. Oakland University’s master in public health degree is accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). You’ll earn a highly interdisciplinary MPH that integrates concepts from the health sciences, public administration, environmental health, mental health, statistics, education, nursing, exercise science, and other fields.
What can you do with a master of public health degree?
Public Health Careers
Demand for MPH graduates is expanding rapidly. An aging population, reforms to health care laws, evolving technologies, and other factors have created a broad need for public health professionals to evaluate new programs, measure outcomes, and chart a course for the future. You may find public health career opportunities with government agencies, nonprofit organizations, health care networks, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, universities, and many other types of employers. MPH graduates commonly pursue careers in:
- Nonprofit leadership
- Environmental health
- Public policy
- Epidemiology
- Biostatistics
- Health education
- Program evaluation and analysis
- Hospital administration
- Clinical services
- International health research
- Patient advocacy
MPH Degree: What You’ll Study
Oakland University’s MPH degree is accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). The curriculum includes required courses in health policy, health behavior and education, statistics, epidemiology, and environmental health.
Our MPH program features two professional development components: a semester-long practicum with a public health organization in the community, and a capstone project based on independent research, data analysis, and public presentation.
Elective courses enable you to align the MPH program with your career goals. Course subjects include (but are not limited to):
- Environmental justice
- Social determinants of health
- Global health issues
- Legal and ethical issues in public health
- Diversity and social justice
- Child development and education
- Wellness counseling
- Databases and data warehousing
- Physical activity
- Nonprofit organization and management
- Public administration
- Public budgeting and finance
- Crisis intervention