Master of Public Health

BW's MPH program prepares prepares students for professional challenges and opportunities in population health promotion and management. You'll gain interdisciplinary knowledge and skills that can be applied to healthcare practices and programs designed to prevent disease, improve the delivery of health services, promote the health of diverse populations and reduce health disparities. BW's MPH features collaborative study, research, and service that emphasizes the importance of excellence in population health practice and need for social justice and service to vulnerable populations.

You can choose from four available concentrations:

1. Population Health Leadership & Management: This concentration prepares students with critical leadership and management tools needed to address evolving healthcare needs of diverse populations. Students in the Population Health Leadership & Management concentration will require a minimum of two years of prior work experiences in public health or healthcare sectors to be eligible for admission.
   
   
2. Health Education & Disease Prevention: This concentration offers programs of study to assist students to acquire advanced methods for assessing community health needs and to develop and implement disease prevention strategies to promote better health. Prior work experience is not required to apply for this concentration.
   
   

3. Epidemiology: This concentration prepares students to approach population health issues by applying evidence-based epidemiologic methods and tools. Students will learn a broad range of quantitative data analysis techniques to examine the causes and preventive approaches of diseases and evaluate the effectiveness of population health programs. Prior work experience is not required to apply for this concentration.

4. Health Informatics: Students in this concentration will learn modern techniques and approaches to dive into the world of big data in population health and the healthcare industry. Students will learn different, high-demand skills, including data visualization, data mining, testing relationships among variables using path diagrams, statistical modeling, and making predictions. Students will gain hands-on experience using mainstream software and technologies used in various public health problems, such as ArcGIS Desktop, SAS, JMP Pro, Tableau, R Studio, and Python. Prior work experience is not required to apply for this concentration.

Classes meet Friday evenings and Saturday mornings (two weekends a month) on The MetroHealth System campus in Cleveland or the Baldwin Wallace campus in Berea. Online students can complete the sessions at any time during the directed timeframe.

The curriculum requires a total of 45 credits including core requirements, courses in area of concentration, and a required practicum experience.

• Core courses: 22 credits
• Concentration: 15 credits
• Electives: 3 credits
• Population health practicum/research: 4 credits
• Capstone: 1 credit

The department of public health and prevention science values evidence-based educational approaches that actively engage students within the learning environment. The faculty utilize a variety of techniques, including problem-based learning, technology-based pedagogy, case studies  and collaborative learning techniques such as high-quality class discussions and peer teaching (i.e., role play, test taking teams, etc.) that offer an alternative to lecture-based class meetings.

Public Health Club
The Public Health Club promotes awareness about public health issues; generates and shares service and internship opportunities; creates professional fellowship and development opportunities; and advocates for preventative education, research and funding for the public health field.

A major strength of the BW MPH program is that it provides students with opportunities to apply learning directly within the healthcare and/or community setting. All students enrolled in the MPH program will participate in a formal practice placement experience or in research projects and a culminating experience that incorporates a wide range of population health topics and settings. The MetroHealth Hospital System will serve as one of the primary settings for practicum.

• Practicum: A minimum of 240 hours supervised placement experience or an applied research component serves to ground students in "real world" applications to solve population health issues and provides service to the community. This will constitute the first component of applied learning.
• Culminating Experience: The second component of the applied learning is the intensive culminating experience. The culminating experience is intended to provide the opportunity for students to address a public health question or issue of their interest that draws from their academic experience. It provides students with the opportunity to apply, integrate and synthesize knowledge and experience obtained during their academic course of study to a question or problem of public health relevance. In some cases the culminating project idea or opportunity may evolve from the student’s practice placement experience. The culminating experience has three primary components: a proposal, a written applied project paper and an oral presentation.

Baldwin Wallace University and all its programs are accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). The Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) approved the MPH program in 2016. The MPH program is preparing for the accreditation process with the Council of Education for Public Health (CEPH).