Liberal Education and Undergraduate Public Health Majors: Surveying the Landscape

Who knew there was a growing interest in undergraduate education in public health?

There is a high level of interest, commitment, and activity among nearly all surveyed institutions in defining learning outcomes either in majors, in general education, or in both. However, when we put those outcomes into the context of public health, senior academic administrators have not identified the specific health outcomes as important to their overall efforts. Well-designed undergraduate public health programs are ideally suited to align with essential learning outcomes of liberal education, but the connections are not yet clear to many of those who are driving the movement for curricular reform. This alignment, especially at institutions where the public health elements are not gathered in a program, requires intentional efforts to match outcomes and designs.