A History of Undergraduate Education for Public Health: From Behind the Scenes to Center Stage

Education for Public Health traces its roots to the Welch–Rose report of 1915. The Welch–Rose report defined education for public health as applied graduate education primarily for professionals such as physicians, nurses, and engineers who needed academic education and the latest research to help them take on leadership roles in governmental public health (1). The graduate and research focus of academic public health dominated the landscape for the better part of the twentieth century. Yet behind the scenes, changes were occurring that have led in the twenty-first century to new approaches to undergraduate public health education. The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) was founded in 1950. As was the practice of the era, membership required a graduate degree. A decade later, SOPHE began admitting members with an undergraduate degree and practice experience (2). Undergraduate programs supported by SOPHE have included community health and school health. The emergence of environmental health as a distinct field led to the development of environmental health programs at the bachelor’s degree level with a strong science emphasis. In 1967, the National Environmental Health Science & Protection Accreditation Council (EHAC) was established. East Tennessee State’s undergraduate environmental health program became the first accredited undergraduate program (3). When the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) was founded in the late 1940s, graduate degree programs formed the basis of eligibility for membership. Undergraduate programs were gradually added. By the late part of the century, AUPHA was offering a certification process for undergraduate health administration programs (4). During the last half of the twentieth century, undergraduate programs in public health and related fields were developed that either did not qualify for membership in SOPHE, EHAC, or AUPHA, or chose not to pursue such membership. According to the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH), by 1992, there were 45 institutions that were offering one or more undergraduate degrees in a public health related field. By 2000, this number had risen to 76 (5). These early efforts to develop specialty degrees for undergraduates not only survived but have grown over the years. At the turn of the twenty-first century, they represented the major source of undergraduate education for public health.