Community Health and Health Equity Concentration

About

The Community Health and Health Equity concentration provides students with the training to identify and respond to the effects of social, cultural, and behavioral factors on individual and population health. Specialists in this area describe how culture, social inequities, and biological factors influence health and apply their knowledge to create preventive interventions to decrease health-damaging behaviors and increase health-promoting behaviors. Students learn how to develop, plan, implement, and evaluate programs aimed at achieving health equity in addition to learning the importance of research methods, communication strategies, leadership development, and ethical practice in health promotion, education, and advocacy. Graduates from this concentration will be prepared to study the interaction between policies and the social and behavioral sciences, and identify ways to address health inequalities and promote health equity.

In addition to meeting the 22 MPH Foundational Competencies, graduates from the Community Health and Health Equity concentration will meet the following concentration specific competencies.

Concentration Competencies

1. Identify and describe how social and behavioral factors at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, community and macro levels affect health status and behavior across populations, including how these factors contribute to health inequalities across diverse populations.   
2. Apply social, behavioral, community and macro-level theories to analyze determinants and correlates of public health problems, with the aim of creating multi-level conceptual models that can be tested using qualitative or quantitative research methods.   
3. Develop theoretically-driven research questions and hypotheses that can be tested with qualitative and/or quantitative research methods.
4. Develop, implement, and evaluate theoretically-driven health behavior change, community-based, or structural intervention programs targeting at risk populations.   
5. Demonstrate the skills and knowledge necessary to effectively communicate and collaborate in diverse public and professional settings, including: conferences, health departments, community based organizations, governmental organizations, communities, hospitals, worksites, schools, private industry, and other public health relevant settings.