Changing Demographics of Public Health Graduates: Potential Implications for the Public Health Workforce
Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: The first class to graduate from a school of public health ( Johns Hopkins, 1919) was comprised exclusively of white male doctors over 35 years old.However, there were only three graduates in that class, so of course one cannot draw conclusions from the statistics from that year.However, this small sample size aside, there have been major demographic changes in public health graduates since the beginning of professional education in the field.Public health training has grown enormously over the past 40 years.The number of accredited schools has increased from 15 in 1965 to 34 today, not including the eight schools waiting for accreditation and the estimated more than three hundred schools that offer training of any type in a public health discipline.The number of students graduating from accredited schools of public health has increased from 770 in 1960 to 5,906 in 2003.Despite these increases, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Health Professions estimates that only 20% of the nation's 400,000-500,000 public health professionals have the education and training needed to do their jobs effectively. 1 The Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) annual data report includes data trends on new enrollments, students, and graduates of schools of public health that have been formally accredited by the Council on Education of Public Health (CEPH).We analyzed data reports from the ASPH from the years 1993 through 2003 as well as old data reports from the American Public Health Association (APHA) from 1965-1969.These reports provided information on gender, ethnicity, citizenship, and previous academic training.However, ethnicity and citizenship data were available starting only in 1974-75.In addition, data on previous degrees is no longer collected for any except the MD.We used data on graduates instead of applicants, new enrollments, or students, because graduates best represent the future public health workforce.In addition to the data available from ASPH and APHA annual data reports, we analyzed alumni records from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.Though Johns Hopkins likely has an older student population than other schools of public health because of the large number of doctoral students and because it requires a minimum of
Source: Public Health Reports
Authors: Caitlin Kennedy, Timothy Baker
Institution: Johns Hopkins University
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2465376203