Public Health Ethics, Advocacy, and Leadership (BA)

Public Health deals with the health of populations, as opposed to clinical medicine which focuses on individual patients. In the US, the field was first developed in 1915, and in 1920, in the journal Science, Dr. C-EA Winslow promoted the study of 'public health' as "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" (Winslow 1920). In 1988, in a landmark study, The Future of Public Health, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) called for a fuller governmental infrastructure and stronger social networks to better attend to public health. The result was the Public Health System approach that informed Healthy People 2010, and thereafter Public Health 2.0 and Public Health 3.0. Today, the American Public Health Association offers the widely adopted definition that "public health promotes and protects the health of people and the communities where they live, learn, work and play" (APHA).

More specifically, studying and addressing public health combines three essential types of activities: assessment (regular monitoring of the health of communities), assurance (making services fairly available to the public), and policy development (using scientific knowledge to better inform and direct public behavior). It also entails closely scrutinizing the political, social, economic, and behavioral causes of differential population health outcomes in order to better address health, morbidity, and mortality inequities. As taught and practiced today, then, public health includes interdisciplinary approaches in behavioral health, biostatistics, community health, environmental health, epidemiology, global health, health economics, health management, occupational health, public health law, and public health policy, among other fields. This major's requirements were last updated in 2024.

Willamette College

Bachelor of Arts (BA)