Major Program
The Public Health Sciences major at Hamline is an interdisciplinary field of study that permits students to focus on health issues in local, national, and international arenas from a variety of perspectives. The field of public health focuses on improving the health and wellness of populations, whereas the field of medicine aims to prevent, diagnose, and treat illness, one individual at a time. Thus, the field of public health is broad, with many sub-disciplines, discussed below. The Public Health Sciences major builds on connections between the liberal arts and the core concerns of public health, with the recognition that issues of human health are complex, influenced not only by human biology and statistics, but also by social structures, psychology, culture, and public policy.
The Public Health Sciences Major prepares students for jobs or advanced study in wide range of areas including health promotion, chronic disease prevention, infectious disease prevention and outbreak investigation, health promotion, health and wellness program development, health policy and advocacy, environmental and occupational health, epidemiology, food safety, behavioral and mental health sciences, community health, and international/global health.
Students planning to pursue graduate study in public health should check the admission requirements of the programs they are interested in applying to, and make sure they are completing all required prerequisite courses.
Program Director: Sharon Preves
Note: Students wishing to pursue a health professional degree (medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, physician assistant, chiropractic medicine, etc.) after graduation from Hamline will need to complete an additional series of required prerequisite courses before applying to one of these programs. These courses will need to be completed in addition to the Public Health Sciences Major courses. All students interested in admission to a health professional program should work closely with a Pre-Health Advisor to make sure they are completing the appropriate prerequisite courses.
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