Mission

The primary educational goal of the Ph.D. in Public Health is to rigorously prepare public health professionals, scholars, and research scientists to meet the health challenges of the 21st century across a wide variety of settings. Our Ph.D. will prepare you for positions as faculty researchers at academic institutions, federal and state health departments, research institutes, private sector business and industry, and national and international organizations. There are many specialties  in the public health field.

The Ph.D. offered at UConn is particularly strong in three areas:

• Social and Behavioral Health Sciences: This specialty explores these influences on individual and community health, focusing on empirical and applied research methods to identify and measure health problems and to design and evaluate interventions for improving health outcomes.
• Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences: This specialty offers students a grounding in theory and methodology as well as specialized instruction that builds knowledge of the broad range of occupational and environmental exposures and their influences on health, illness and injury, and interventions to improve health outcomes.
• Chronic Disease Epidemiology: This specialty provides expertise in cancer epidemiology and prognosis, public health genetics, and psychiatric epidemiology.

Curriculum

Doctoral education occurs through both required and elective coursework along with research undertaken under the auspices of your major advisor and Advisory Committee. We are a 60-credit program, consisting of 45 credits (15 courses) in coursework and 15 credits in dissertation research. Together you, your major advisor, and your committee develop a plan-of-study that will reflect your interests and abilities to engage in public health scholarship.

The Ph.D. in Public Health requires students to register for at least three courses (9 credits) each semester to maintain their student status (unless the student has a 20-hour per week graduate assistantship, in which case two courses (6 credits) per semester qualifies. This is a substantial commitment of time and effort; one that’s necessary for timely completion of your degree.

Accreditation

While accreditation for the Ph.D. program may be pursued in the future, our doctoral students benefit from enrolling in courses offered by UConn’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program, which has been continuously accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) since 1984.