The domain of public health is very vast, with several specialization options. Public health specialists work on strategies that educate the communities and overall population regarding health concerns. Most importantly, public health specialists help in the prevention of widespread diseases.
While doctors treat an illness after diagnosing it, the goal of public health workers is to prevent people from having illnesses in the first place. Public health professionals make health-related policies and make sure these policies are implemented. They also raise awareness among the masses about health threats, etc.
This article points out five good reasons why you should get a master’s in public health and how it will benefit you.
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Table of Contents
Direct Entry In The Medical Field:
If you get a degree in public health, you will be able to make a quick entry into the medical world. Other medical professionals, like doctors, dentists, nurses, etc., can only enter the medical field after that they have fully completed their extensive training or additional education or both. For example, dentists and doctors have to go to graduate school for four or more years, hospitals now hire nurses with a master’s degree, audiologists and pharmacists need a doctoral degree to get licensed, etc. But if it’s not feasible for you to go back to school for half a decade, or you want a mid-life career change, you can easily achieve your goals with a master’s in public health.
Many reputable institutions now offer online degree programs like an online MPH disaster management program, which will give you the knowledge to tackle health concerns in areas where there has been a natural disaster like floods and how you can control the spread of diseases, make people meet their, nutritional requirements, etc. Thus, you get to work in the medical field straight away after completing your master’s degree.
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Make a Difference:
Even though public health specialists work in the medical field like any other healthcare professional, say, doctors or nurses, the way they look at things is completely different from others. What separates public health specialists from other healthcare professionals is their broad perspective. A public health graduate is taught to look at the social disparities in health among the communities, too. This means that public health specialists don’t only look at the physical aspects that affect a person’s or a community’s health, but they also look at the social differences that lead to such health disparities.
Public health specialists see which communities in the country are not getting access to healthcare facilities, why they lack awareness, etc. Then they make policies and strategies to ensure that such neglected communities get easy access to all health-related facilities. This is not only limited to the national level; a public health specialist looks at the health and social disparities throughout the globe and suggests ways to overcome these differences.
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Unlimited Career Options:
With a degree in public health, you can work in different types of jobs in healthcare like epidemiologist or research analyst, biostatistician, healthcare administrator, health and safety engineer, public health project manager, public health planner, disaster management specialist, director of population health, global infectious diseases specialist, and the list goes on. There are more career paths than you can think of. You will never get bound to work in a specific field in healthcare.
You can even provide expertise in diverse fields by becoming, say, an environmental inspector, medical journalist, policy analyst, grant writer, political scientist, lobbyist, etc. Thus, when you hold a degree in public health, you will never run out of career paths, and you can choose any type of career that you feel more inclined to. Even if you want to transfer your knowledge to future generations, you can also do that by getting a job in the education sector.
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Job Security:
The number of jobs in the public health sector is increasing, with these jobs paying more. As the majority of the population is aging, it’s understandable why more people than before are getting chronic illnesses. Moreover, with the recent big shock to the world in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic, countries were hit with the realization that they need to focus more on implementing public health policies so that they can recover from the negative effects that Covid-19 left behind and more importantly, prepare in advance for any such thing to ever happen again. Thus, the demand for public health professionals is increasing rapidly.
Increased demand means more and more job opportunities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that from 2021 to 2031, there will be a 12% job growth for work related to community health. Every sector demands expert and capable public health professionals. There are job opportunities in the private sector as well as government organizations at the city, state, or even federal level.
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Provide Long-Term Solutions To Bigger Problems:
While other healthcare professionals deal with individuals, you, as a public health specialist, will get to work for communities, groups, and populations. Your target as a public health worker will be to suggest long-term solutions for problems that people face at a collective level by using your problem-solving capabilities. You will investigate beyond an illness and address the impacts of society, environment, and behavior on the health of communities.
Most public health workers also get to work with WHO to provide long-term solutions to problems commonly faced by different communities around the world. As a public health expert, you identify a potential health risk before it affects anyone, and then you initiate a plan to prevent and, later on, fight that disease. The reason why America has successfully overcome the health concerns like polio and malaria is due to the long-term solutions devised by public health experts.
Conclusion:
Getting a degree in public health is not only beneficial for you on a personal and professional level, but it is also beneficial for society. Our world needs more experts in the realm of public health that can offer their expertise in the medical field and provide solutions to long-term health-related problems of the masses. Consider these five reasons for getting a master’s in public health that are good enough to convince anyone.
