Education
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. Among the risks we face are new threats to health. These emerging health risks call for new science that identifies the complex relationship between climate variability and health outcomes, as well as a new workforce of professionals who can translate that science into action.
The Climate and Health Program fosters innovative, cross-disciplinary scholarship on the human health dimensions of climate change. Our goal is to advance society’s capacity to understand, anticipate, and prevent adverse health consequences related to climate change.
The Climate and Health Program coordinates graduate training in climate and health at both the doctoral and masters levels at the Mailman School of Public Health.
Masters Certificate in Climate and Health (MPH)
The Climate and Health certificate, launched for applicants to the Fall 2012 entering class, is designed for master’s students who want to specialize in addressing climate-related health issues, translating climate and health science into action, and designing public health interventions.
This program will provide a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners with the tools to understand, anticipate, and prevent adverse health consequences from climate variability and change.
Graduates will find a range of career options at state and city health departments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control, consulting firms, NGOs, and corporations.
A certificate is selected when you apply to the school or your may apply midway through your first semester. This certificate program is open to students throughout the Mailman School, and is most compatible with students in the Environmental Health Sciences, Epidemiology, Population and Family, and Health Policy and Management Departments. Admission requirements include 1 semester of calculus and 1 year of biology, chemistry, or physics.
Courses drawn from departments across the School will examine the diverse ways that climate affects human health – from epidemiology to toxicology – and explore the complex interactions among environmental exposures, vulnerability factors, and health systems.
PhD in Climate and Health
The academic program builds upon diverse theoretical and methodological frameworks to provide students with the competencies necessary to understand and respond to the complex linkages between climate and human health.
Students in the PhD program train for professional careers where they will conduct advanced research, teach, and/or hold leadership positions in the private and public sector. Doctoral training is customized to the needs and interests of individual students in consultation with program faculty. Students work closely with faculty mentors to carry out advanced research to better understand mechanisms by which climate change impacts human health.
Full funding is available for all PhD candidates. In addition to research, teaching is considered an important aspect of the training of doctoral students. Thus, all PhD candidates serve as Teaching Fellows; as such they collaborate annually with a faculty member on a course taught to Master’s of Public Health students. Candidates obtain research experience by fulfilling up to three rotations with members of the training faculty.