Public Health Minor
Hours: 15 credits, all completed with minimum grades of C
The public health minor allows preprofessional students to acquire public health knowledge that complements their chosen career path. It is specifically designed for students going into careers other than public health who can benefit from public health knowledge in the delivery of their services. A few examples of these careers include anthropology, dentistry, environmental engineering, health education, medicine, nursing, nutritional sciences, occupational therapy, physician assistant and psychology. Students interested in public health careers should consider a combined-degree program rather than the minor.
For students in the College of Public Health and Health Professions, successful completion of this minor satisfies the 9-credit college elective requirement and 6 credits of general elective credit. Therefore, no additional hours beyond 120 are required for graduation with a minor in public health.
Students must have completed the prerequisites for the BHS program with minimum grades of C to be considered for a minor. Prerequisites include junior status (60+ credits), a 3.0 overall GPA and a 3.0 prerequisite GPA, and completion of general college biology (BSC 2009 or 2010), APK 2105, PSY 2012, STA 2023, and CLP 3144 or DEP 3053 or health psychology.
Students can transfer up to three credits of approved coursework toward the minor. All remaining credits must be taken from the course list below.
Please note that only 3000/4000-level courses may be taken in the junior year (60 credits completed). Students must have senior standing (90 credits completed) to enroll in the required graduate-level (6000 level) public health courses.
Interested students should submit the required UF application to add or cancel a minor. Students also must submit a proposed plan of study that includes their courses for the minor.
Application materials should be submitted to the Bachelor of Health Science Office in the College of Public Health and Health Professions (HPNP 4119). Minors are considered on a space-available basis. (The communication sciences and disorders program also offers a minor. Please refer to that website for additional information.)
Required Courses
| PHC 3440 Global Public Health |
3 |
| PHC 3603 Critical Issues in Public Health |
3 |
| PHC 4101 Public Health Concepts |
3 |
| RCS 4061 Public Health Aspects of Substance Abuse |
3 |
| The courses below can be taken only in the senior year: |
|
| HSA 6114 U.S. Health Care System |
3 |
| PHC 6001 Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health |
3 |
| PHC 6050 Statistical Methods for Health Sciences 1 |
3 |
| PHC 6313 Environmental Health Concepts in Public Health |
3 |
| PHC 6410 Psychological, Behavioral and Social Issues in Public Health |
3 |
A Note About Counting Credits for Undergraduate or Graduate Degrees
For most students, the graduate-level credits taken for the public health minor will count toward their undergraduate degree requirements and not, therefore, toward a UF graduate degree.
Students who change their career path to public health while still undergraduates would need to apply and to be accepted to the combined degree program or to take additional credits above and beyond those counted for the undergraduate major to allow the public health core coursework to count toward the Master of Public Health.
(If students are interested in the MPH degree with a concentration in biostatistics, they should plan to take two semesters of college-level calculus while an undergraduate.
If the interest is environmental health, they should plan to take two semesters of college biology and two semesters of college chemistry. Organic chemistry is recommended but is not required for environmental health.)
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