MPH - Health Promotion & Disease Prevention Track

EDUCATION

Department of Public Health and Public Health Education Programs

The Health Promotion and Disease Prevention concentration in the Master of Public Health (MPH) program teaches you to improve public health by working with individuals and their communities. As a student in the program, you learn to assist communities in effective action in setting priorities, making decisions, and planning and implementing strategies to improve the public health of their neighborhoods. In addition to looking at community, you also learn to influence the social norms that can promote health and encourage disease prevention across the life stages.

Our curriculum addresses topics such as nutrition and physical activity; chronic disease prevention and control; health literacy; health communications; injury control and prevention; aging/health and disabilities, and men's, women's, and children’s health. We place particular emphasis on the elimination of disparities in health outcomes.

Thanks to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s long and rich tradition of collaboration with the East Harlem community, you will gain hands-on experience in the promotion of health and the prevention of disease through the East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership.

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Learn More About This Concentration

To determine if the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention concentration is right for you, explore the additional resources and get a preview of the competencies and courses.

Students in this concentration will develop skills and competencies to be successful in public health including:

Apply behavioral or social science theory in the development, implementation, or evaluation of health promotion interventions.
Effect programmatic change at individual, community, or policy level.
Synthesize surveillance data to identify sources of health disparities.
Describe the health, legal, social or political implications of policy alternatives.
Examine the psychosocial and environmental causes of health disparities in the implementation, or evaluation of health promotion or intervention programs.

The MPH degree requires the completion of a total of 45 credits, an applied practice experience, and a culminating experience. In addition to the general course requirements, students will complete these track-specific courses:

Public Health Surveillance
Health and Literacy: Improving Health Communication Efforts
Health Promotion Strategies

Remaining credits are accrued through electives, seminars, and independent study. The track advisor should be consulted early to plan ahead for the completion of the MPH degree requirements. Refer to the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Checklist for a full list of courses.

In this track, you will complete a master’s thesis as your culminating experience. Recent student projects include:

Developing an accurate record of all pediatric vaccinations given in New York City through collaboration with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Creating educational tools and evaluating their effectiveness in a population of HIV/hepatitis C-infected substance abusers
Working to establish an Arab-American clinic at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Developing an obesity education program for the East Harlem community