Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #113802

J. Jackson Barnette, PhD, Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, RPHB 130, Birmingham, AL 35294-0222, (205) 975 7742, jbarnette@ms.soph.uab.edu

Public health education is intertwined with many other health and human service fields. There is a need to prepare public health professionals who have concentrated training in more than public health. Many graduate programs in public health offer students the opportunity to enroll in joint degree programs. In 2003, a review of the 32 member schools of the Association of Schools of Public health indicates that almost all of them offer at least one dual degree program. The five most frequent dual degrees offered are: MD/MPH, JD/MPH, MSN/MPH, MSW/MPH, and MBA/MPH. Emerging dual degrees are now being seen in areas such as the DVM/MPH as we deal with the human-animal interactions related to infectious disease and public health preparedness.

Occasionally dual degrees are offered jointly with another university. The number and variety of joint programs are somewhat delimited by the proximity of available programs and the ease or difficulty which university regulations permit mixing programs. Dual degrees across universities present special challenges. Often, the curriculum is the easy part of setting up such a degree. Logistics aspects such as admissions procedures, tuition, registration, who gets to claim the students as theirs, assistantships, and what happens if the student drops out of one program are the major challenges for such an arrangement.

Dual degree programs have other potential benefits beyond the dual preparation of students. This paper presents an overview of current dual degrees with the MPH in ASPH member schools and the issues involved in developing and implementing them.

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