Graduate Certificate in Public Health (GCPH)

Our 100% online, 18-credit certificate program provides a solid public health foundation

CEPH Accreditation | Curricula & Course Descriptions | Practical Experience | Academic Calendar | Academic Catalog

UNE’s 18-credit hour Graduate Certificate in Public Health provides students with the core public health concepts they need to either enhance their professional knowledge or to pursue a graduate degree in the field. These 18 credit hours are the foundation courses for UNE’s Master of Public Health degree. All certificate program courses are transferable to UNE’s MPH degree program.

With a mission centering on teaching, research, and service, the program educates students from across the nation and around the world. The online public health program boasts a renowned faculty who are leaders in public health research with extensive collaborative partnerships in the public health community.

Program Highlights:

  • 18 credit hours
  • Complete your certificate in as little as 1 year
  • 100% online – no campus visits required
  • Learn anytime, from any place
  • Dynamic faculty of practitioners, researchers & educators
  • No GRE required to apply
  • Regionally accredited by New England Commission on Higher Education (NECHE)
  • Accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH)

Accreditation

CEPH accredited logo for master's program in red and white The Master of Public Health and Graduate Certificate in Public Health programs at the University of New England are accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). Click here to learn more »

The University of New England is regionally accredited by the New England Commission on Higher Education (NECHE). NECHE is the regional accreditation agency for colleges and universities in the six New England states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Accreditation is the review of the quality of educational institutions and programs. In the United States, accreditation is a major way that the public knows that an institution or program provides a high quality education.

Course List

All graduate certificate students must complete the following courses (18 credits):

This course will examine public health principles and concepts. It will provide a broad framework for understanding public health’s role in community health, prevention, and medicine. Using the five core public health knowledge areas and the ten essential public health services as a foundation, students will explore public health infrastructure, surveillance, social determinants of health, policy, and emerging issues. In addition, the course will weave public health areas such as chronic disease, infectious disease, environmental health, maternal and child health, and injury into discussions and assignments.

This course is designed to introduce students to the basic principles of epidemiology as they apply to public health practice. Content will include: a historical perspective on epidemiology, descriptive epidemiology, effect measures, study designs, bias, surveillance, and screening for disease. Emphasis will be placed on investigative techniques, epidemiological methodology, and critical thinking about epidemiological studies and data.

This course provides you with an introduction to the procedures used in the summarization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of research data. Topics include sampling, experimentation, measurement, descriptive statistics, correlation, probability, confidence intervals, testing hypotheses, 2-way tables, and simple linear regression. This course is deliberately broad and not intended to give students an in-depth understanding of statistical testing, analysis of categorical data or regression analysis. Rather, its intent is to provide an overview of some of the main areas of statistics and a working knowledge of basic summary statistics, graphs, and simple statistical tests for hypothesis testing. At the end of the course a student should be able to evaluate simple statistical usage in everyday life and their own discipline, especially in relevant research publications; and interact knowledgeably with statisticians in planning, conducting, analyzing, and reporting research projects. Prerequisite: GPH 712. Stata statistical software is required for this course.

Using an ecological approach, health behaviors will be considered within the context of influences on individual behaviors. The course will address the use of behavioral and social science theory to inform the development and implementation of health promotion and disease prevention programs, and consider the inherent ethical dilemmas involved in planned social and behavioral change efforts.

This course brings together graduate students in public health, education, social work, nutrition, and health informatics to work collaboratively to learn the fundamentals of policy-making as applied to the broad issue of student mental health in an educational setting. Students work in interprofessional groups to identify the social problem, describe the policy context, map potential policy solutions, and make final recommendations in an individual written policy analysis that incorporates learning from their interprofessional peers. Students will explore the structure and function of government systems as they relate to values-driven policy decisions.

The world about us provides for our life, but also can be dangerous to our health. This dichotomy is the essence of the study of environmental health. Students completing this course will be able to apply scientific knowledge to evaluate the risks that exist in the world about them. This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to the field of environmental health in an ecosystems context. The course will emphasize the recognition, evaluation, and control of hazards including toxic chemicals, fibers and dust, ionizing radiation, and infectious agents. General principles and global processes will be linked to local issues and the regulatory environment through case studies and interviews with subject matter experts.


View the full course descriptions for the UNE Graduate Certificate in Public Health


 

Questions?

If you have any questions about the coursework or the program requirements, please speak to one of our enrollment counselors at the email or phone number below.