Dec 11, 2024  
2016-2017 Graduate Studies Bulletin 
    
2016-2017 Graduate Studies Bulletin [ARCHIVED BULLETIN]

Public Health, MPH


Assistant Professor Santella, Graduate Program Director, 516-463-5932

Public health is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to prevent injuries, illness and premature death, promote health and wellness, and prolong life at the group, community and population levels.

Hofstra’s MPH program is accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH).  It emphasizes both the theoretical foundations of public health as well as its practical application. Students are trained to understand, conduct, interpret, and apply public health research, to assess public health problems in communities, to apply health education and social science theory to developing interventions to improve community health, and to understand the role of public health within society.

Admission Requirements


  1. A completed online application form;
  2. Undergraduate degree from an accredited institution of higher learning, including submission of all transcripts from undergraduate institutions;
  3. Minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.0;
  4. GRE scores. (Other standardized test scores – e.g., MCAT, GMAT, LSAT— may be substituted. Medical school graduates are waived from this requirement).
  5. Three letters of recommendation addressing the applicant’s potential for success in graduate school and the public health field;
  6. Written personal statement identifying areas of interest and reasons for seeking advanced training in public health;
  7. Resume;
  8. International applicants for whom English is not their first language must submit TOEFL scores;
  9. Interview with program director if applicant does not have any prior experience in public health or health care.

The program understands that any single criterion may not reliably predict a student’s potential for success. Applicants who want to be considered even though they do not meet all the admissions criteria are encouraged to offer a rationale for an exception to the requirements in their written personal statement.

Program Requirements - Semester Hours: 42


The curriculum consists of 42 semester hours, with 36 semester hours of classroom instruction, 3 semester hours of internship and 3 semester hours of a culminating experience.

The curriculum is designed to meet the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accreditation standards and include Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) core competencies. Courses are designed around the five core public health disciplines: biostatistics; epidemiology; social and behavioral sciences; environmental health; and health policy and management. Seven critical cross-cutting competencies are integrated into course work: communication and informatics; diversity and culture; leadership; professionalism; program planning; systems thinking and public health biology.

Core Requirements - Semester Hours: 30


The required core curriculum is comprised of ten courses and 30 semester hours. At the discretion of the program director, students may transfer up to 9 s.h. earned within the last five years in a comparable graduate program. The program director will need to see course bulletin descriptions and/or syllabi to evaluate such requests.

Core Electives - Semester Hours: 6


Students may choose 6 s.h. of electives from the following list. Students also have the opportunity to explore additional areas linked to specific faculty expertise, such as bioethics, chronic illness and aging; suburban health disparities; clinical research management; medical anthropology; reproductive health; disaster preparedness; outbreak investigations; dental public health; advanced epidemiology; advanced biostatistics; and advanced environmental health.

Required Field Experience - Semester Hours: 6


The internship provides experiential learning with the goal of applying skills learned in the classroom in the professional practice environment. The culminating experience demonstrates the student’s ability to integrate multiple competencies from both their course work and their internship experience in one of three ways. Each of the following options provide students with the opportunity to develop expertise in a specific topic area, demonstrate research method skills, and make a contribution to the field of public health: 1) a manuscript that can be submitted for publication; 2) a manuscript that can be submitted for a panel or symposium presentation at a professional conference; 3) a grant proposal that uses new data analyses that can be submitted for funding.

Graduation Requirements


Successful completion of all course requirements for the degree, with a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Courses in which the student earns below a B- will not count toward degree requirements.