Want a Ph.D. in public health?

Want a Ph.D. in public health?

UF to offer doctoral degree in public health

By Jill Pease

The College of Public Health and Health Professions has received approval from Florida’s Board of Governors to offer a doctoral degree in public health beginning this fall. With the addition of the Ph.D. program, UF now offers doctoral and master’s level education in each of the five core disciplines of public health.

The new Ph.D. program will offer two concentration areas: environmental and global health, and social and behavioral sciences. The college expects to add more concentrations and students will be able to choose a specialty within each concentration. Graduates of the program are likely to go on to work in education and research at universities, nonprofit organizations, health and environmental research firms, and state and federal agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This new Ph.D. training program will permit new students not only to join us, but also to design and conduct their own research studies,” said Gregory Gray, M.D., M.P.H., chair of the college’s department of environmental and global health. “We have some of the finest emerging disease laboratory space in the world and it has been my experience that adding a cadre of bright and enthusiastic young minds to a research group often results in new research ideas that can have a profound impact upon public health.”

The Association of Schools of Public Health estimates that by 2020 the United States will have a shortage of more than 250,000 public health workers.