harris county public health

harris county public health

Public Health Career Opportunities

1. Introduction to Public Health Careers

A public health professional offers an excellent definition: “Public health is the practice of preventing disease and promoting good health within groups of people from small communities to entire countries.” This is done through a systematic analysis of the factors affecting health and implementing initiatives that care for the health of a person as well as society. This creates great diversity in the field of public health and many opportunities for work.

The field of public health is dedicated to improving the health conditions of people, their communities, and societies as a whole. This is done through education, promotion of healthy lifestyles, and research for disease and injury prevention. There are many areas in public health, but the general idea is to promote good health.

2. Job Roles in Public Health

The last part of job roles is analysis. This job is essential for health information and planning to improve health and prevent disease at a wide level. In recent years, there has been a large amount of recruitment of health information analysts or charity health information officers. This is because now the health information is huge and there is much evidence that numerous health conditions are preventable. These people will manage health information using a variety of sophisticated techniques and will provide recommendations for implementation or producing new interesting research.

Another important job role in public health is implementing functions and improving current health care interventions. This job mainly involves some action and requires relevant expertise. Skills may vary from administration to medical expertise. Implementation jobs can be seen in projects to improve hospital hygiene, safety measures in air travel, design more effective smoke alarms, or implementing smoking cessation interventions in mental health patients. This job is focused on changing interventions that have risks or poor benefits to interventions that have been proven to be effective and safe. There are a range of health professionals involved in health care improvement, and there has been more recruitment in recent years of quality and safety experts. This job will improve health at the population level but might involve taking some risks with restricting detrimental interventions or changing policy.

Job roles in the field of public health vary widely. Among the main job functions are research, implementation, and analysis. Health research is an important part of public health. Research can be done in the field of disease control, like malaria, or preventing road traffic accidents, or improving occupational health. Doctors, nurses, statisticians, epidemiologists, and public health professionals often engage in research. Research jobs can be found in academic institutions, research institutes, government bodies, and private companies. This job involves gathering and investigating information related to health and prevention. The compiled information should help to implement effective interventions or prevention. Research jobs are generally low on action and high on the application process. Health research will produce new knowledge in the field of health through testing hypotheses. Research needs to be ethical and should follow strict safety guidelines. New evidence-based knowledge should be accessible to stakeholders.

3. Skills and Qualifications for Public Health Jobs

Skills and competences required to work in public health will include personal effectiveness and capability building in the areas of analysis and assessment, leadership and management, communication, partnership working, working with communities and groups and, lastly, action skills. Steps to improve capability and personal effectiveness can vary depending on an individual’s current level of proficiency. Steps can include seeking out a more experienced mentor, attending relevant courses, developing leadership styles and techniques, and taking time out to reflect on practice and learn from mistakes. Analysis and assessment underpins all areas of practice and is crucial to improving the health of the public. Steps to build this skill would involve working on research studies, developing research skills, working on procure and analyzing what works or doesn’t work, developing data analysis techniques, improving information literacy, and understanding the importance of the knowledge to action cycle.

The competencies needed by individuals working within public health are highly diverse and are influenced by the specific nature of the individuals’ jobs and their career goals. Despite this diversity, logging evidence towards specific competencies and developing a defined skill-set are perceived by employers as essential for their employees. Many identify the need for a greater evidence base of the competencies required by different professionals within public health. A generic set of competencies for all public health professionals would be unrealistic given the wide range of activities undertaken by the various disciplines. Public health has a code of ethics which underpins all of the work carried out in the field.

4. Job Market and Salary Outlook in Public Health

Graduates will also be happy to know that public health is a field in which the higher level education one attains, the higher the salary he or she will receive as compared to other career fields. According to a study conducted by the ASPH, less than half of alumni with a bachelor’s degree were satisfied with their jobs and they were the lowest earners, in some cases they were even being out-earned by high school graduates in other fields. On the contrary, a very high percentage of those with a doctoral degree reported being very satisfied with their jobs and were the highest earners among their public health peers. This is good news for today’s college graduates as a competitive job market has made higher level education a requisite for success in many career fields.

A survey was conducted by the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) in which alumni from 14 participating schools were asked to rate the growth potential and job availability in their discipline. Those who held positions in health services administration and environmental health science reported the most job opportunities. Disaster and emergency preparedness and occupational safety and health were ranked as the most promising emerging career fields. Epidemiologists are also expected to be in high demand. Interestingly, health educators’ ratings for job availability were lower than expected given the prominence in recent years of health promotion and disease prevention. This could be explained by the fact that many health educators are located in the non-profit and private sectors. In sum, the job prospects for public health graduates are good and expected to get even better in the years to come.

The job market in the field of public health is now wide open. A large portion of the public health workforce is planning to retire in the next few years, which will create a great number of opportunities for individuals entering into this field. Beyond the needs to replace those who are leaving, there is an ever-increasing demand in society for preventative services and solutions. This need will create many new jobs in the public health sector. At the same time, the marketplace for individuals with public health skills is becoming increasingly specialized. Individuals with specialized skills in administration, research, or some other area of public health will be more suited to filling jobs in their area of specialty. Public health graduates can expect the following job prospects.

5. Steps to Pursue a Career in Public Health

Public health is an interdisciplinary field drawing from natural and social sciences, as well as from the humanities. It can serve as a key to employment in a number of fields such as international development, the NGO sector, or governmental research and advocacy. Public health experience can lead to law school for those interested in health care policy, or to medical or nursing school for those interested in clinical practice. Evident from the range of types of organizations involved in public health, there are numerous ways in which to forge a career in this field.

Public health opens doors to a wide array of career opportunities, as evident from the varied and diverse list of employment possibilities within the field. A public health professional has a large number of jobs from which to choose. Whether one is interested in science, health care, nutrition, or the environment, there is a job to suit one’s interests and skills. In addition, an effective and successful public health practice demands an understanding of social, cultural, and economic factors that shape the incidence and prevalence of disease in human populations. This type of understanding can only be attained through a career in public health.