What is Public Health?
Public health is a high-impact career path that works to make positive, high-impact change on a grand scale by preventing illness and injury, improving quality of life, and achieving health equity across entire populations. Tackling complex challenges – from social determinants of health and environmental justice to disease investigation and health policy – means that virtually every interest area can find a home in the field. If you are passionate about helping people on a large scale and seek a rewarding career rooted in science, innovation, and leadership, public health offers a meaningful path to create a healthier future for all. Thinking of public health as a broad umbrella, you can see how it covers many different roles, like being an epidemiologist, a health educator, or a policy analyst. Listed below are examples of the broad spectrum of roles that are under the umbrella of public health.
Sophie Switzer, Assistant Director of Career Development – Carleton Career Center, has extensive experiences in career services for the University of Iowa College of Public Health. She has provided the following summary and resources.
Roles in Public Health
Examples of Roles in Hospitals
- Genetic Counselor
- Medical Social Worker
- Nurse Midwife
- Transplant Coordinator
- Infection Preventionist
- Healthcare Administrator
- Patient Navigator
- Health Educator
- Child Life Specialist
- Access Coordinator
- Health Data Manager
- Insurance Policy Liaison
- Nutritionist
Examples of Roles in Private Industry
- Emergency Preparedness Manager
- Ergonomist
- Industrial Hygienist
- Occupational Safety Specialist
- Employee Wellbeing Coordinator
- Regulation Compliance Officer
- Food Safety Technician
- Quality Assurance Manager
Examples of Roles in Research
- Epidemiologist
- Biostatistician/Bioinformatics
- Clinical Research Coordinator
- Translational Scientist
- Medical Anthropologist
- Public Health Laboratory Scientist
- Clinical Laboratory Manager
- Chemical Risk Coordinator
- Research/Data Analyst
- Water/Air Quality Monitor
Examples of Roles in Government (Federal, State, and Local)
- Epidemiologist
- Community Resource Navigator
- Environmental Health Supervisor
- Health Educator
- Public Health Nurse
- Water/Air Quality Monitor
- Emergency Preparedness Manager
- Human Toxicologist
- Housing Coordinator
- Health Inspector
Examples of Roles in Non-profit
- Community Advocate
- Food Access Coordinator
- Housing Services Coordinator
- Health Policy Analyst
- Health Communication
- Community Outreach Coordinator
- Community Health Worker