School of Public and Community Health Sciences
Academic Programs
Public health is “what we as a society do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy [1]". Public health professionals monitor and diagnose the health concerns of communities and promote behaviors and practices that ensure that populations stay healthy.
The Public Health Programs are designed to accommodate students who are currently employed. Courses are offered using digital learning technology supported by UM Online’s Blackboard courseware system. Both the Master of Public Health degree and the Certificate of Public Health are completed almost entirely online.
Master of Public Health (MPH)
A graduate degree in public health enables professionals to:
- gain knowledge of the factors which influence legislative and social policies
- apply broad-based, state of the art qualitative and quantitative problem-solving skills
- develop multidisciplinary and collaborative strategies for solving health-related problems
- enhance their communication skills
- be positioned for leadership roles in health promotion and disease prevention [2]
The MPH degree involves 42 graduate credit hours of instruction, including 36 credits of required core courses in:
- Introduction to epidemiology
- Fundamentals of biostatistics
- Administration and management in the U.S. health care system
- Health policy
- Social and behavioral sciences in public health
- Program evaluation and research methods
- Environmental and rural health
- Ethical issues in public health
- Rural health issues in a global context
- Practicum
- Professional portfolio
- Professional paper
For more information on required and elective courses, see the curriculum page.
Students pursuing the MPH degree on a full time basis should be able to complete the course work in two years when taking 21 credits per year. It is anticipated that students who continue to work while pursuing the MPH degree will require a minimum of three and a half years to complete all of the course work on a part-time basis (averaging 6 credits per semester).
Certificate of Public Health
The Certificate of Public Health will be awarded to students completing any four (12 credits) of the core courses required for the MPH degree. Transfer credits may not be applied to the CPH. Interested students are strongly encouraged to apply for admission into the CPH program prior to enrolling in any PUBH courses as courses taken prior to admission may not be applied toward the completion of the certificate. Additionally, applicants are required to contact an advisor in the School of Public and Community Health Sciences to discuss and have approved a proposed plan of study. Refer to the admissions page for more details. The CPH is geared towards:
- those who currently work in a public health setting but have no formal public health training and are not interested in the MPH
- those who wish to update their public health training
- those who work in related fields and wish to broaden their knowledge of public health issues and concepts
The CPH may also be a good way to get started on the MPH degree (although admission into the Certificate of Public Health program does not guarantee admission into the MPH program).
Download a MPH/Certificate of Public Health brochure.
The Certificate of Public Health option could be completed in as little as a year. For more information about course offerings, see the curriculum page.
Online Digital learning: The Public Health Programs are designed to accommodate all students, including those who are currently employed. All of the core required courses are only offered online with exception of PUBH 580: Rural Health Issues in a Global Context. Students will be responsible for making arrangements to attend this one, week long, intensive face-to-face course offered each summer. Courses are supported by UM Online’s Blackboard courseware system. In addition to PUBH 580, MPH students will be required to attend a day long orientation held in August each year. These are the only two required residential stays on the UM-Missoula campus for the entirety of the program. The Certificate of Public Health can be completed entirely online and does not require a residential stay; however, CPH students are highly encouraged to attend orientation.
Faculty: The School of Public and Community Health Sciences teaching faculty consists of 3 full-time public health faculty and 26 affiliate public health faculty from across the UM campus including faculty from:
- Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences
- Pharmacy Practice
- Psychology
- Social Work
- Health and Human Performance
- Political Science
- Environmental Studies
The program will also involve visiting instructors engaged in public health practice throughout Montana as well as invited guest lectures from other universities nationally and internationally. For more about the faculty, see the department directory.
[1] Institute of Medicine Committee on Assuring the Health of the Public in the 21st Century. The future of the public's health in the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2003.
[2] (adapted from www.whatispublichealth.org)
