2025-2026 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
    Aug 04, 2025  
2025-2026 Undergraduate Catalog

Public Health, BS


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Contact

Ignatius Ijere, Undergraduate Program Director
435B White Hall
315-443-9393
inijere@syr.edu

Description

The Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health (BSPH) prepares students for health-related careers in government, private, and non-profit organizations that address health promotion and illness prevention in individuals, families and communities.  Service learning and community engagement are key in this major - beginning freshman year and extending through the senior capstone internship, students are working with community partners to improve health in the Syracuse University and regional community.  The 30-credit public health core provides foundational public health knowledge and skills important for entry level public health practice or post-graduate study.  In addition to the public health core, a 15-credit concentration in Addiction Prevention, Health & Society, Healthcare Management, or Community Health Education provides further career-related training.  Students who complete either the Addiction Prevention concentration or Community Health Education concentration are eligible for initial professional credentialing in corresponding careers.  The public health major also provides a pathway to advanced studies in medicine, dentistry, physician assistant, nursing, occupational therapy, or physical therapy.

For all Arts and Sciences|Maxwell students, successful completion of a bachelor’s degree in this major requires a minimum of 123 credits, 96 of which must be Arts and Sciences|Maxwell credits, completion of the Liberal Arts Core requirements, and the requirements for this major that are listed below.

Dual Enrollments:

Students dually enrolled in *Whitman* and Arts and Sciences|Maxwell will complete a minimum of 128 credits, with at least 60 credits in Arts and Sciences|Maxwell coursework and an Arts and Sciences|Maxwell major.

Student Learning Outcomes


Public Health Core Learning Outcomes

1. Communicate public health information, in both oral and written forms and through a variety of media, to diverse audiences
2. Locate, use, evaluate, and synthesize public health information
3. Apply basic principles of project implementation
4. Use concepts of population health and models from social and behavioral disciplines to promote health and address health related needs and concerns of groups and communities across the life course
5. Relate biology, health behavior, social determinants, and environmental contexts to human health, disease, and the expression of health disparities
6. Outline the organizational structure, function and delivery modalities for U.S. and global healthcare systems
7. Act according to professional values and ethics in public health practice, research and education
8. Describe how community forces, economic factors, and research shape health practices and policies

Concentration Competencies

Addiction Prevention

  • Explain theoretical underpinnings of addiction in individuals and communities.  
  • Apply public health prevention theory, ethical principles, and findings from current scientific literature in addiction prevention programming
  • Examine substance use and substance use disorders in the context of social and environmental influences

Community Health Education

  • Apply a conceptual framework when planning community health education
  • Develop an advocacy plan
  • Identify factors that influence health behavior

Health and Society - enrollment suspended; concentration under revision

  • Elucidate challenges populations may face in regards to human rights, access to services, financial strain, and social stigma
  • State the basic theories and concepts of behavioral neuroscience
  • Describe nutrition-related approaches to promote health

Healthcare Management

  • Examine the role of ethics and policy in the delivery of healthcare
  • Use fundamental concepts and processes relevant to quality improvement within healthcare systems
  • Describe the complex issues impacting health care delivery, currently or in the future
  • Apply leadership and management principes to the strategic management of healthcare employees

Required Courses - Liberal Arts


Public Health Concentrations (15 credits)


Students choose 1 of the following concentrations:

Community Health Education Concentration


(Community Health Education Specialists [CHES] eligible).

Health and Society Concentration “Enrollments suspended, concentration under revision”


Total Credits: 123


Degree Awarded: Bachelor of Science


Program Requirements


Students must complete an approved health ethics course. An approved course list is available on the Public Health department web page. In addition, students must complete a life science course with lab (BIO 121 and 122 or BIO 123 and 124) and a statistics course (MAT 121 or MAT 221).

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