Find your path in public health

Public health is about making a real impact — strengthening health care systems, preventing disease, shaping policy and addressing the social and environmental factors that affect health.

The Bachelor of Science in public health at Oregon State University offers four specialized tracks, allowing you to focus your studies and prepare for a career that matches your interests and goals.

Public health degree tracks:

• Health Promotion and Health Behavior (HPHB): Focus on education, program planning and behavioral health to design and lead public health initiatives in diverse communities.
• Health Systems and Policy (HSP): Dive into health care systems, equity, and policymaking to understand how health care works, why it sometimes doesn’t and how to improve it.
• Pre-Med/Pre-Clinical (PMPC): Build a strong public health foundation while preparing for medical, physician assistant, nursing, or physical therapy school.
• Public Health Science (PHS): Use data to track disease outbreaks, study environmental health threats, and uncover health patterns. Perfect for future epidemiologists, researchers and health scientists.

No matter which track you choose, you'll graduate with hands-on experience, a strong public health foundation, and the skills to make an impact.

Explore each track below to find the best fit for your future.

In the Health Promotion and Health Behavior Track, you'll discover why some communities face bigger health challenges than others and learn how to create solutions that make a real difference.

From planning community health programs to creating effective health campaigns, this hands-on program prepares you to turn ideas into action.

With an internship built into the program, you’ll gain valuable experience and practical skills before you graduate.

You can even align your coursework to meet the requirements for the Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) exam — opening doors to even more career opportunities in health promotion.

In the Health Systems and Policy Track, you’ll learn how laws and policies affect health care and why some people live longer, healthier lives than others. This track will help you understand how health care works, why it sometimes doesn’t, and what you can do to fix it.

If you're passionate about making changes that help entire communities, this is your chance to make a real difference.

The Pre-Med/Pre-Clinical Track prepares you for medical school or other health care careers while giving you a unique public health perspective.

You’ll explore how health care systems work, why certain diseases affect some groups more than others, and how social and environmental factors shape people’s health.

With hands-on internships, you’ll gain valuable experience and develop the skills to become a doctor, nurse, physical therapist or physician assistant who knows not just how to care for individual patients but also how to keep entire communities healthy.

In the Public Health Science Track, you’ll learn to track disease outbreaks, study environmental threats, and uncover health patterns using data.

Through hands-on internships at places like the CDC or local health departments, you’ll work alongside public health scientists to solve some of today's biggest health puzzles while gaining real-world experience that sets you apart.