摘要：In the 20th century, public health education in the United States existed as a professional degree program, with training at the masters (MPH) and doctoral (PhD, DrPH, and ScD) levels. Today, the system is rapidly evolving as undergraduate majors, minors, and concentrations are establishing themselves around the country. This new focus of public health education, rooted in a liberal arts environment, is distinct from the professional training of graduate school. As such, undergraduate public health students have unique characteristics and needs that should be considered as part of the advisors’ responsibility to provide meaningful, relevant advising. The perspective and comments presented here are largely based on the authors’ nearly 30 years of combined experience in undergraduate public health education. HISTORICALLY, PUBLIC health and medicine were closely tied in the United States. In the early 1900s, the Flexner and Welch–Rose Reports distinguished between the two, 1 with the former addressing a failing medical education system and the latter recognizing public health as a separate entity with specific training needs. These documents set the stage for establishing formal public health education as a professional degree program. The educational structure was highly debated, with Welch advocating for a system that incorporated research and practical training, drawn respectively from German and English models. This system was epitomized in the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (today The Bloomberg School of Public Health), founded in 1916. Other schools of public health, such as those at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Michigan, quickly followed. As the demand for training exceeded the capacity of existing programs, federal funds were later allocated for additional schools. 1 Today, the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) includes 41 fully accredited institutions and 6 associate members. 2 Each entity offers masters and doctoral degrees with a comprehensive curriculum rooted in 5 core disciplines: epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, health education and behavioral science, and health services administration. The Council on Education for Public Health accredits an additional 74 programs that support public health degrees that may or may not offer specific concentrations. 3
