Public Health

Population health rather than individual patients — epidemiology, biostatistics, health behaviour, environmental health and policy. ⚠⚠⚠ Unlike every other health programme on this site, it is primarily a GRADUATE field, and Florida's own numbers say so: 579 master's degrees against 560 bachelor's. ⚠⚠ And it is taught at only 8 Florida public institutions, every one of them a university — no state college awards it.

The degrees this program covers

⚠⚠⚠ THE MASTER'S OUTNUMBERS THE BACHELOR'S, WHICH HAPPENS NOWHERE ELSE IN THIS CATALOGUE. Florida awarded 1,208 credentials under general public health in 2023: 579 master's, 560 bachelor's, 44 research doctorates. ⚠ Treat the MPH as the normal terminal credential rather than an optional extra, and plan the bachelor's as the first half. ⚠⚠ ONLY EIGHT INSTITUTIONS, ALL UNIVERSITIES: USF 423, Florida State 279, UF 198, FIU 126, UWF 80, FGCU 43, and a short tail. ⚠ That is the opposite of health care administration, which 20 Florida COLLEGE SYSTEM institutions carry at upper division — so if staying at a state college matters to you, these two neighbouring subjects are not equally available and it is worth knowing before you commit. ⚠⚠⚠ AND THE UNDERGRADUATE SUBJECT IS NOT NUMBERED PHC. Of the 18 PHC courses carried by four or more Florida public institutions, 14 are GRADUATE; only PHC2100, PHC4024 and PHC4101 reach four carriers at undergraduate level. The undergraduate teaching sits in HSC — HSC4500 Epidemiology at 9 institutions, HSC4730 Public Health Research at 7, HSC3032 Foundations of Public Health at 5. ⚠ A student who searches the PHC prefix will find a graduate catalogue and wrongly conclude there is no undergraduate route. ⚠ For graduate study, the accreditor is CEPH, the Council on Education for Public Health; check a programme's status with CEPH rather than with the school.

Careers this program leads to

Each one sets out the courses along the way, the licence or certification at the end, and the sources behind it.

Environmental Scientist and Specialist

Measuring and protecting water, air, soil and habitat, and making the case in front of a regulator. ⚠⚠⚠ Two things a Florida student should know before choosing the major. FIRST, environmental SCIENCE and environmental STUDIES are different degrees leading to different jobs, and the state's largest producer teaches the studies one. SECOND, Florida pays this occupation $21,390 below the national median — a far wider gap than architecture's $3,040 or interior design's $6,330 — so choosing the employer matters more here than almost anywhere else.

Physician

⚠⚠⚠ There is no pre-medical major, and AAMC's own numbers say the medical-sounding one is the worst choice. Of 54,699 applicants in 2025-26, 58.6% majored in biological sciences and were admitted at 42.1% against an overall 42.9% — while mathematics and statistics reached 57.3%, humanities 52.0% and physical sciences 51.3%. ⚠⚠ Specialized health sciences came LAST at 40.3%. Six Florida public medical schools award 757 degrees a year.

Public Health Professional

⚠⚠⚠ The job most students picture when they say public health is the smallest one in the federal data. Epidemiologists: 12,300 employed in the whole country, about 800 openings a year, and entry is effectively 100% graduate. The jobs are in health education (71,800, $64,070) and community health work (65,100, $51,850, high-school entry). ⚠⚠ Florida's own numbers say the same thing from the other side — 579 master's degrees against 560 bachelor's, at just 8 institutions, every one a university.

Social Worker

816,100 jobs nationally and about 69,100 openings a year — one of the largest openings figures on this site. ⚠⚠⚠ But the specialties people enter the field for pay the least: child, family and school social work is $59,550 and mental health and substance abuse $60,280, while "all other" — largely policy and administration — is $71,900. ⚠⚠ And the clinical licence needs a CSWE-accredited master's plus two years of supervised practice after it.

Careers that name this program, but not as a route

Athletic Trainer

⚠ Not a route in, but a common direction out: concussion policy, heat illness prevention and injury surveillance are population health, and athletic trainers move into that work. ⚠⚠ Florida teaches it at 8 universities.

Biologist and Biological Technician

⚠ An underadvertised exit that uses the biology rather than discarding it, and one where a master's is the normal and sufficient credential.

Fitness Professional and Exercise Physiologist

⚠ A salaried route out that uses the training: worksite wellness, chronic-disease prevention and community physical activity, funded institutionally rather than client by client.

Journalist, PR Specialist and Communicator

⚠ Named for a specific route: health communication is a named content area in the CHES credential, county health departments employ communication specialists, and CHES is coursework-based rather than major-based — so a communication graduate who planned 25 credits can reach it.

Marine Biologist and Wildlife Biologist

⚠ An unexpected Florida destination — harmful algal blooms, shellfish sanitation and beach water quality sit between the two fields, and the public health side is better funded.

Mental Health Counselor and Therapist

⚠ Named because behavioural health at population scale — prevention, substance use programming, community mental health planning — is where counselling and public health meet, and county health departments employ both.

Nurse Practitioner and Advanced Practice Nurse

⚠ A common second credential rather than a route in, and the combination is unusually strong: a public health bachelor's alone is thin, and an MPH over a nursing licence is not. ⚠⚠ Population health, epidemiology and programme roles in county health departments are where the two meet.

School Counselor

⚠ Named because school-based mental health, prevention programming and youth risk behaviour work sit between the two fields, and district and county programmes employ both.

Programs similar to this one

Neighbouring fields that share much of the same coursework, and often the same employers. ⚠ Read these before you commit to a major — which doors a neighbouring degree keeps open is the part no catalog tells you, and it is far cheaper to change now than later.

Health Care Administration 24 Florida schools

⚠⚠⚠ The neighbouring degree, and the comparison every student should make because the two run OPPOSITE on availability. Public health is taught at 8 Florida institutions, all universities; health care administration at 24, with 20 state colleges carrying the upper-division coursework. ⚠ Similar subject matter at the policy end, entirely different access — and administration pays a $123,860 median against health education's $64,070.

Health Information Management 31 Florida schools

⚠ Named because both fields live on health DATA and students confuse the two. Health information management owns the individual record and codes it; public health aggregates populations and asks what the data means. ⚠⚠ HIM has a credential ladder (RHIT, RHIA) reachable with an associate degree; public health's serious credentials are graduate.

Nursing 78 Florida schools

⚠ Not a required route, but public health nursing is a large real destination and a nurse entering an MPH arrives with clinical credibility the classroom cannot supply. ⚠⚠ It also solves public health's weakest point — the bachelor's alone is a thin credential, and a nursing licence underneath it is not thin at all.

Dietetics and Nutrition 6 Florida schools

⚠ Named because community nutrition sits inside public health practice and the two programmes share students, WIC and SNAP-Ed employers, and much of the behaviour-change coursework. ⚠⚠ The dietitian credential is a licensed one in Florida where health education is not, so a student weighing the two is weighing a licence against a broader field.

Emergency Medical Services 39 Florida schools

⚠ Not a route into it, but public health preparedness and emergency management is where the two meet, and PHC6251 Public Health Preparedness for Disasters is carried at five Florida universities. Named because EMS and fire officers moving into county-level preparedness roles end up in this programme.

Social Work 9 Florida schools

⚠ The closest graduate neighbour and a common dual degree — the MSW/MPH. Both are population-facing, both sit at universities only, and both have a master's-weighted award profile. ⚠⚠ The difference worth knowing: social work has a state LICENCE at the end and public health has none.

Advanced Practice Nursing 9 Florida schools

⚠ Named because public health nursing and population-health roles are a substantial destination for advanced practice nurses, and the MPH is a common second credential. ⚠⚠ It is also the one route on this site where a nursing licence underneath a graduate degree turns a thin credential into a strong one.

Environmental Science and Studies 19 Florida schools

⚠⚠ A genuine and underadvertised destination. Environmental health — water quality, air quality, vector control, hazardous materials — is a named public health specialism, county health departments employ it, and the SOC title for this occupation is literally 'Environmental Scientists and Specialists, INCLUDING HEALTH'.

Medicine 6 Florida schools

⚠ The MD/MPH is a common combination and public health is where a substantial share of physicians end up working on policy, epidemiology and population programmes. ⚠⚠ Florida teaches it at 8 institutions, all universities, with 579 master's degrees a year.

Counseling 8 Florida schools

⚠ Named because behavioural health at population scale — prevention, substance use programmes, community mental health planning — is public health work, and the two fields share employers in county health departments and community mental health centres.

Athletic Training 8 Florida schools

⚠ Not a route, but a common second direction: concussion policy, heat illness prevention and injury surveillance are population-health work, and athletic trainers move into it. ⚠⚠ Florida teaches it at 8 institutions, all universities, and the master's outnumbers the bachelor's there too.

Marine Biology and Ecology 5 Florida schools

⚠ An unexpected and real Florida destination: harmful algal blooms, shellfish sanitation, beach water quality and vibrio surveillance sit between marine biology and public health, and the public health side is better funded and better paid.

Journalism, Public Relations and Communication 14 Florida schools

⚠ Named for a specific and underadvertised route: health communication is a named content area in the CHES credential, county health departments employ communication specialists, and the CHES route is coursework-based rather than major-based.

Biology and Biomedical Sciences 15 Florida schools

⚠ An underadvertised exit that uses the degree rather than discarding it: epidemiology, environmental health and infectious disease all read as biology, the master's is a common next step, and the CHES credential is coursework-based rather than major-based.

Psychology 10 Florida schools

⚠ Behavioural science is one of public health's core disciplines and health behaviour theory comes straight out of psychology. ⚠⚠ The CHES credential is coursework-based rather than major-based, so a psychology graduate who planned the 25 credits deliberately can reach it without a further degree.

Kinesiology, Exercise Science and Sport Management 16 Florida schools

⚠ A route out that uses the training: worksite wellness, chronic disease prevention and community physical-activity programmes are public health work, the CHES credential is coursework-based, and the funding is institutional rather than client-by-client.

Florida public institutions offering this program

14 institutions awarded a credential in this field in 2023, at these levels: Associate, Bachelor's, Certificate (<12 weeks), Certificate (1-2 years), Certificate (12 weeks-1 year), Doctorate (research/scholarship), Master's, Post-master's certificate, Postbaccalaureate certificate. A school appears here if it awards anything in the field, however limited its offering — a technical college teaching only practical nursing has a nursing program. Listed alphabetically, not ranked.

Broward College

Associate · Certificate (1-2 years)

Eastern Florida State College

Associate · Bachelor's · Certificate (1-2 years)

Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

Doctorate (research/scholarship) · Master's

Florida Gulf Coast University

Bachelor's

Florida International University

Doctorate (research/scholarship) · Master's · Postbaccalaureate certificate

Florida State College at Jacksonville

Associate · Certificate (1-2 years)

Florida State University

Bachelor's · Master's

Hillsborough Community College

Associate · Certificate (1-2 years) · Certificate (12 weeks-1 year)

St Petersburg College

Bachelor's

University of Florida

Bachelor's · Certificate (<12 weeks) · Doctorate (research/scholarship) · Master's · Post-master's certificate · Postbaccalaureate certificate

University of Florida-Online

Bachelor's

University of North Florida

Master's · Postbaccalaureate certificate

University of South Florida

Bachelor's · Doctorate (research/scholarship) · Master's

University of West Florida

Bachelor's · Master's

Source: federal IPEDS completions data for 2023, first majors only — the most recent year published. ⚠ It records what was awarded, which is strong evidence of what is offered, but a program launched since 2023 will not appear here. Check the institution’s own catalog before applying.

Updated 22 September 2026. ⚠ Program pages describe a field of study, not one school’s degree — always read the catalog of the institution you are applying to.