Health Promotion Certificate
HEALTH PROMOTION RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
The terms health education and health promotion are often used interchangeably, with health promotion being the more recent of the two terms. The field of health promotion involves designing programs (often referred to as interventions) that cover the gamut from disease prevention and promotion of optimal health to detection of illness and provision of treatment, rehabilitation, and/or long-term care. Programs address infectious diseases and chronic diseases, with consideration of social and structural environmental influences on health and disease, and can be domestically or globally situated. To be effective, health promotion programs need to be based on theory, evidence, and data from at-risk populations. Unfortunately, many programs are designed based on precedent, tradition, and/or intuition, leading to limited success.
Students in the Certificate in Health Promotion Research and Practice will first learn how to design, conduct, and analyze results from a community needs and assets assessment. Then, based on the assessment, students will learn how to design and implement health promotion programs. Next, they will learn how to create program materials that attract attention and meet current national CLAS standards. Finally, students will learn how to evaluate these complex programs which target determinants of health and disease on the individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and policy levels of the social ecological framework. Students in this Certificate are required to complete 5 courses, including 1 elective course, amounting to 15 credits.
What does a Health Promotion practicum look like? Read the experiences of past students here.
Graduates have taken jobs in a number of sectors including federal, state, and local health agencies; community based organizations in the U.S. and abroad; nonprofit agencies; academic settings; research institutions; and, foundations. Recent job titles have included Research Coordinator, Research Associate, Research and Evaluation Analyst, Market Research Analyst, Communications Associate, Health Policy Consultant, Quality and Systems Improvement Program Coordinator, Program and Outreach Coordinator, Healthcare Analyst, Chief Health Officer, Operations Manager, Performance Improvement Specialist, Program Development Specialist.
See what our 2018 Health Promotion graduates are doing now!
See what our 2019 Health Promotion graduates are doing now!