ArticlePublic health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974)
Master's-Level Education in the Governmental Public Health Workforce.
Article in Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974). The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- New local health officials: health departments' newest leaders.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Building leadership skills through applied learning in an MPH program.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- A review of recruitment and retention strategies in U.S. local health departments: insights and practical solutions.Frontiers in public health · 2025Review
- Engaging Public Health Alumni in the Tracking of Career Trends: Results From a Large-Scale Experiment on Survey Fielding Mode.Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesMore than 16 000 graduate degrees in public health are awarded annually. Yet only 14% of the governmental public health workforce has formal public health training of any kind, and 8% has a master of public health (MPH) degree. We characterized the differences among governmental staff members with master's degrees across US health departments.
methodsWe used data from the 2017 Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey, a national survey of state and local public health departments (43 669 responses; response rate, 48%). We examined the characteristics of the workforce by educational attainment and compared respondents who had obtained a "terminal" (ie, highest degree obtained) MPH degree with respondents who had obtained a terminal non-public health (non-PH) master's degree.
resultsRespondents who had a non-PH master's degree were as likely as respondents who had an MPH degree to hold a supervisory role (43% vs 41%;
conclusionsWe found only marginal differences in career outcomes for people working in governmental public health who had a terminal MPH degree vs a terminal non-PH master's degree. This finding does not necessitate a full reconsideration of the MPH as it relates to governmental public health practice but a greater recognition that there are multiple paths into practice.
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