The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is the largest school of public health in the world and the first institution of its kind worldwide. It’s consistently rated Number 1 by the U.S. News and World Report, and it enrolls more than 1,900 students from 84 nations.

It’s no wonder that the Bloomberg School’s Internet-based Master in Public Health Program does not have to be overly concerned about the possibility of not filling up its two yearly cohorts, each comprised of 60 to 70 students.

Currently there are about 400 students enrolled in the program, which is part-time, takes 3 years to complete, and is the same as a matching full-time on-ground program that takes one year for students to complete. Admitted students, whose average age is 37, must have either two years of post-baccalaureate health-related work experience or a doctoral degree in a field underlying public health.

Face-to-Face, Two-Week Orientation

Cohorts begin the program in either January or June with a two-week, on-site orientation and coursework in Baltimore. Students are allowed to complete up to 80% of the degree requirements over the Internet. The remaining 20% of residential requirements are scheduled by each individual student to accommodate his or her schedule and academic goals to complete the program.
 
“We have a very international audience,” says Program Chair Ron Brookmeyer. “We have many professionals who are very experienced in health-related fields. Some of them could be physicians with very successful practices, and they are doing clinical research and/or clinical medicine, and they want to make a shift in their careers to a more population-based (activity), perhaps running a health maintenance organization or to management in the health field, or to more public health-oriented work. Others may be in laboratory fields or social scientists. We have dentists; we have nurses; we have veterinarians; we have people coming in from the Peace Corps. People have gotten to us from many different paths, and now they want to get into the public health field. The MPH is sort of like the MBA of public health.”

Strong Social Component

The two-week, on-site orientation has a “strong social component,” adds Brookmeyer. One of the big challenges at this point is to develop a strong cohort, because a lot of what the students learn in this program comes from interacting with each other, as well as with faculty. “So, that networking is very important for us to maintain. These people are going off to be ministers of health all over the world. In 10 years, when there is an emerging epidemic, what are they going to do?,” Brookmeyer asks rhetorically. “They are going to call their friend whom they met in the MPH program who is now head of CDC’s infectious disease unit.”

Establishing Realistic Time Management Strategies

The orientation also has sessions focused on examining prototypes of academic schedules that these busy professionals can accommodate into their lives. Currently enrolled students as well as alumni partake in panel discussions where they talk about their experiences balancing their work, MPH studies, and other responsibilities.

Sharing Knowledge

Students also take an overview of public health course during the orientation where they work together on public health problems. For instance, they may sit around a table in small groups and discuss the proper intervention for a flu outbreak, says Brookmeyer. “You might have a infectious disease specialist sitting next to a veterinarian who can discuss bird migratory problems and the risk of transmission.”

Online Courses

When students return to their homes and workplaces, they engage in the online courses, which are typically high quality, student-to-student and student-to-faculty interactive courses rich in multimedia and graphically illustrated content. PowerPoints with audio lectures, for instance, are produced in a studio with the help of a professional audio producer. Illustrators help with the production of animations or special drawings. Multimedia specialists help produce short, relatively low bandwidth videos of professors introducing their courses, or of demonstrations of public health procedures, such as an inoculation, or something related to a public safety issue. Instructional designers and technical writers work with faculty to ensure that course content has sound pedagogical values.

“To do everything right takes resources,” says Brookmeyer. “It is not just putting up PowerPoint slides. It requires faculty time as well. The energy involved is substantial, and it creates tremendous flexibility for students all over the world.”