Public health workforce for the future: UIC Experience

When first instituted, the MPH was designed as an “add on” degree for people who were already involved in public health work. The purpose was to enhance the public health workforce. However, during the late 1970's, most schools started opening their MPH programs to young students, many right out of college. In the early 1980's, about 70% of the MPH students in Health Policy and Administration at the UIC School of Public Health were mid-career public health professionals. That percentage has been going down ever since. This change was likely accelerated when the Council on Education in Public Health required that all MPH's must be at least 42 semester hours in length, eliminating the many one year programs that existed at the time. In the incoming class in our division for Fall, 2011, we expect only 10% to 15% will have three or more years of experience in the field. We have been involved in two efforts to investigate and address this decline in the use of the MPH degree to develop the existing public health workforce. First is project of the Health Policy and Management Council of the ASPH to share information on this issue from comparable programs at accredited schools of public health across the country. This presentation will report on the output of that effort. Second, we have instituted an online MPH specifically designed for and only available to mid-career public health professionals. We will describe this program, and offer comments on its successes and its problems.