Public Health Major (BA) - Health Sciences Concentration

The Public Health Major prepares students for jobs or advanced study in a wide range of areas including health promotion, chronic disease prevention, infectious disease prevention and outbreak investigation, health equity, 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.

Public Health majors have the option to complete an interdisciplinary concentration in public policy. Please see below for details.

Concentration Areas

Public Health offers two concentrations, one in Health Equity and one in Health Sciences.

Health Equity Concentration

The most central theoretical and applied concept guiding global and public health today, into our core curriculum preparing our students for tackling the real world public health challenges they will face upon graduation. The Health Equity concentration is designed for students interested in health advocacy, policy, education, global health, program management, law, or healthcare administration and want training in the social and political circumstances that impact public health and health disparities. This connects strongly to Hamline’s social justice mission. 

Health Sciences Concentration

Health Sciences is designed for students who want a strong background in human and biological science and public health issues (such as infectious disease epidemiology). This includes pre-professional students (e.g., pre-med, pre-pharmacy, pre-PA, pre-DPT). Health Sciences is geared toward students who wish to include a strong science component in their undergraduate studies.

Graduate Study

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.

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 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.