FAQ

The School of Community and Global Health (SCGH) offers a certificate in the Foundations of Public Health intended for various audiences, including allied working professionals and students in affiliated graduate programs in the Claremont University Consortium.

The Master of Public Health (MPH) degree is available with four areas of concentration:

• Health Promotion, Education & Evaluation
• Applied Biostatistics & Epidemiology
• Leadership & Management

Students may also pursue approved dual degrees in Business Administration and Public Health (MBA/MPH) with the Drucker  School of Management as well as Applied Psychology and Public Health (MA/MPH) with the Department of Behavioral & Organizational Sciences.

Students may pursue individually created dual-degree programs with direction from the associate dean for academic affairs. Students from The Claremont Colleges may work simultaneously toward their undergraduate degrees and a Master of Public Health degree with completion of both degrees in five years.

SCGH also offers two doctoral programs: a PhD program in Health Promotion Sciences and a Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH).

The MPH is a professional degree with a greater orientation toward practice in a public health setting. Graduates obtain careers as practitioners in traditional health departments, managed care organizations, community-based organizations, hospitals, consulting firms, international agencies, state and federal agencies, among others.

The PhD in Health Promotion Sciences is an academic degree that is more research oriented and quantitatively based than the MPH program. As such, the PhD program prepares students for careers in academics and research.

The focus of the DrPH program is on leadership in public health practice, giving it a distinct identity from the PhD degree. In contrast to the PhD degree, the DrPH places greater emphasis on evidence-based practice to execute the three core public health functions (assessment, policy development, and assurance) across local, state, federal, and global settings.

Although both the PhD and DrPH degrees involve research components, the DrPH focuses on providing leadership to find evidence-based solutions for public health practice versus following narrower lines of research, as is common for the PhD. The DrPH program is grounded in research practice-relevant skills in program evaluation, data acquisition, analysis, interpretation, translation, and dissemination that are essential for developing and implementing critical public health practice activities. The PhD in Health Promotion Sciences provides students with the skills to work primarily in academic settings to design and test new, theory-driven social and behavioral interventions, often in randomized-controlled trials, to determine their efficacy.

The certificate program in the Foundations of Public Health requires completion of five courses, totaling 20 units. If admitted, students may apply these 20 units to the formal degree program in public health.

MPH students are required to complete 48 semester hours of coursework, including an internship with a public health agency of their choosing. Full-time students (at least 8 units per semester) take one year to complete the certificate program and five semesters to complete the MPH. Students may enroll part-time.

The PhD program is 72 units, which includes coursework, directed research units, a capstone project, qualifying exam, and dissertation. The DrPH program also requires 72 units, including coursework, an advanced practicum, qualifying exam, and dissertation. Full-time students may complete the doctoral programs in approximately five years.

Students who have completed graduate-level work prior to enrollment in a doctoral program at CGU may transfer in up to 24 units of coursework. The work must have been completed with at least a grade of B at a graduate institution accredited by a regionally accrediting body and must be shown as relevant to the degree program.

Units from a college or university outside the United States are transferable only if those units were not applied toward the bachelor’s degree equivalency. Decisions about the acceptability of proposed transfer credit are made by the associate dean for academic affairs.

MPH students may transfer in up 10 units of previous graduate coursework.

Students may switch into a degree program at SCGH by completing the Certificate/Degree Program Change form available on the CGU Registrar’s page. Students can add the certificate program to a current degree at CGU.

SCGH offers departmental aid as well as research assistantships on a competitive basis to incoming and returning students.

GOVERNMENT:
Blue Shield of California
California Department of Health Services
City of Claremont
City of Montclair Healthy Communities
Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment
County of San Bernardino Public Health
Denver Environmental Health Department
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
Los Angeles County Department of Health Services
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Riverside University Health System/ Public Health
Santa Barbara County Public Health Department
US Department of Transportation

HEALTH/HEALTHCARE:
Children’s Hospital Orange County
Kaiser Permanente
City of Hope
Community Health Association Inland Southern Region (CHAISR)
Hospital Corporation of America
Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP)
Médecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders
University of California Los Angeles Mattel Children’s Hospital
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)
World Health Organization (WHO)

EDUCATION/HIGHER EDUCATION (Teaching & Research):
Cal Poly Pomona
California State University Fullerton
California State University Long Beach
California State University Los Angeles
Claremont Graduate University
Claremont McKenna College
Florida International University/Medical School
Johns Hopkins University
Loyola Marymount University
Scripps College
Texas A & M Health Science Center/School of Public Health
University of Arizona Health Sciences Center
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Francisco
University of Maryland
University of South Carolina
University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine
University of Texas, Austin
University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Center
Western University

NONPROFIT/NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS:
American Cancer Society
American Heart Association
American Lung Association
Center for Health Justice
Community Translational Research Institute (CTRIs)
Beach Cities Health District
Bike San Gabriel Valley
Heluna Health
International Committee of the Red Cross
Michigan Public Health Institute
People Assisting the Homeless (PATH)
Prototypes
Public Health Advocates
Special Services for Groups (SSG)
The Heritage Education Group
YWCA San Gabriel Valley

AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS, UNIVERSITIES, AND COMPANIES

We would love for you to visit our campus. Please contact us at admissions@cgu.edu or (909) 607-7811 to arrange your visit.

Claremont Graduate University maintains accreditation through the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC). CGU’s Public Health Program is accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH), an independent agency recognized by the US Department of Education to accredit schools and programs of public health. The school received reaccreditation in 2017 for a seven-year term, the maximum length of time that CEPH will reaccredit schools of public health. The School submits regular reports to CEPH and will undergo its next full re-accreditation review in 2025. In addition, the school is a current member of the Association of Schools and Programs in Public Health (ASPPH).

For information about applying to Claremont Graduate University, please review the Admissions page and for program-specific information, please review the application checklist.