Public Health
Public health is the study of safeguarding and improving the health of groups of people through research for disease, implementation of health and lifestyle choices, and injury and accident prevention and education. It involves the knowledge and application of many different disciplines of health sciences in its research and practice. Public health professionals try to prevent problems from happening or recurring on both a macro and a micro level. They work in communities or on a global scale to implement educational programs, develop policies, administer services, and conduct research, as opposed to doctors and nurses, who are clinical professionals who focus primarily on treating individuals after they become sick or injured.
At the undergraduate level, students interested in public health at Brooklyn College are generally health and nutrition science majors. They can choose from several concentrations: a B.A. or a B.S. in health and nutrition sciences, or in thanatology; a B.S. in public health; a B.S. in foods and nutrition; or an interdisciplinary study in global studies or early childhood/childhood education.
Brooklyn College also has master's-level programs in public health. Students can choose from a master's degree in nutrition, in public health (M.P.H.) either in general public health or in health care policy and administration, and a master's in community health in thanatology or education. Brooklyn College also offers an advanced certificate in grief counseling.
Many students go on to pursue a D.P.H. in public health either at the CUNY Graduate Center or outside the CUNY system.
