Online Graduate Certificate – Public Health

Gain expertise—quickly—to help improve public health issues.

1/27/25 Next Application Due Date
2/10/25 Start Classes

Program Overview


Discover why our online Graduate Certificate - Public Health stands out from the rest

$5,200* Total Tuition
As few as 7 months Duration
16 Credit Hours

Our online Graduate Certificate in Public Health is designed to give you a broad understanding of public health policy, both in the U.S. and abroad. You will learn how to evaluate and improve the health of your community and gain valuable strategies to create and implement public health initiatives.

Coursework in this online program focuses on environmental and occupational health, how to use a systems-based approach to explore public health responses to biomedical outbreaks, and program planning, evaluation and process improvement.

In this EWU public health certificate, you will experience an integrated learning scenario, with both theory and practical tools. In fact, courses are taught by faculty with considerable background in the industry. Upon graduation, you can prepare for in-demand roles such as public health educator, contact tracer, community health advisor or biostatistician.

AACSB logo

The Eastern Washington University School of Business is accredited by AACSB International (AACSB).

In this EWU public health certificate online program, you will learn to:

  • interpret public health learnings that may complement work in an existing healthcare field;
  • understand community public health issues and systems;
  • articulate the social and epidemiological factors that affect public health.
  • interpret public health learnings that may complement work in an existing healthcare field;
  • understand community public health issues and systems;
  • articulate the social and epidemiological factors that affect public health.

Also available online:

If you are interested in pursuing your master’s degree, completed courses in this certificate program count toward your online Master of Public Health from EWU.

$5,200* Total Tuition
As few as 7 months Duration
16 Credit Hours
CEPH logo

The Master’s in Public Health and Graduate Certificate in Public Health are accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH).

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Need More Information?

Call 800-826-3411

Call 800-826-3411

Tuition


Earning your online certificate is easy on any budget with pay-as-you-go tuition

The online Graduate Certificate – Public Health offers the same affordable, pay-as-you-go rate to all in-state and out-of-state students.

Tuition breakdown:

$325 Per Credit Hour
$5,200* Total Tuition

*Tuition and fees subject to change. Total program cost does not include foundation courses. If foundation courses are required, the cost will be added to the total program cost.

Tuition breakdown:

$325 Per Credit Hour
$5,200* Total Tuition

Calendar


Take a glance at the schedule with important dates and deadlines

The online Graduate Certificate – Public Health is designed to be efficient for working professionals, featuring six-week courses and seven start dates a year. View the full calendar to find the best start date for you, along with deadlines for registration, required documents, and tuition payment.

Now enrolling:

1/27/25 Next Application Deadline
2/10/25 Start Classes
TermProgram Start DateApplication DeadlineRegistration DeadlineTuition Deadline
Fall II11/4/2410/21/2410/30/2411/2/24
Winter I12/30/2412/16/2412/24/2412/28/24
Winter II2/10/251/27/252/5/252/8/25
Spring I3/31/253/17/253/26/253/29/25
Spring II5/12/254/28/255/7/255/10/25

Now enrolling:

1/27/25 Next Application Deadline
2/10/25 Start Classes

Have questions or need more information about our online programs?

Ready to take the rewarding path toward earning your degree online?

Admissions


Register quickly and easily – here’s what you need to know

The admission process for the online Graduate Certificate – Public Health is simple and streamlined. You can get started right away, without taking time away from your professional or personal commitments.

Admission Requirements:

  • Bachelor's degree
  • Cumulative 3.0 GPA
  • Professional resume

Online Graduate Certificate – Public Health Admission Requirements

  • Bachelor's degree from a regionally accredited institution
  • Overall cumulative GPA of 3.0 or cumulative GPA of 3.0 in the last 90 quarter or 60 semester-graded postsecondary credit hours**
  • If your GPA is lower than a 3.0 and you have relevant work experience, we encourage you to apply. Applicants with GPAs below 3.0 are considered for admission on a case-by-case basis
  • Official transcript from the college/university where degree was earned
  • Professional resume

Have a question? Call us at 800-826.3411.

**We encourage you to apply if your GPA is lower than a 3.0 and you have at least 3 years of professional work experience. Applicants with GPAs below 3.0 are considered for admission on a case-by-case basis. Please contact an Enrollment Services representative at 800-826-3411 for more information.

This offering is available as an endorsement program for those teachers who hold or who have held an initial, residency, continuing or professional teaching certificate in the state of Washington. If you do not hold a teaching certificate in Washington or do not hold a teaching certificate at all, you are still encouraged to apply. Please note however that this will not lead to a teaching certificate in Washington. Additionally, this program may satisfy the requirements for states other than Washington. Please check with your applicable licensing board to determine whether this program satisfies requirements for licensure in the state in which you reside. For information on certification in the state of Washington, please contact Jill Stinson, Certification Officer, at [email protected]. For current contact information for applicable licensing boards, please refer to our State Authorization page or contact Dianne Selcho at [email protected].

Please note, however, that this will not lead to a teaching certificate in Washington. If you are looking for an initial teaching certificate, please visit the School of Education’s webpage.

Document Submission Information

Order your official, electronic transcripts from the degree-granting institution where you earned your highest degree (bachelor’s or master’s) and have them sent to Eastern Washington University.

  • Most EWU graduate programs only require one transcript. Please submit a transcript from your degree-granting institution. This transcript should include the final two years of your degree completion. If it does not, please submit transcripts to cover your final two years of earned credits.
  • Please note that transcripts ordered by main may take 4-6 weeks to arrive.

If you are ordering a mailed paper transcript, please have it sent to:

Eastern Washington University
Showalter Hall 206
Cheney, WA 99004

Courses


Explore the syllabus for your online Graduate Certificate in Public Health

In order to earn the online Graduate Certificate - Public Health, you must complete four courses (16 credit hours).

Duration: 6 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 4
This course provides a foundational and historical orientation for the public health professional including public health issues, concepts and terminology. Theoretical frameworks and program development skills that support the public health generalist are examined. PUBH 501 must be taken in your first term.
Duration: 6 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 4
This course provides students with the foundations of epidemiology, including its principles, concepts, and methods of epidemiologic practice; design, interpretation and evaluation of epidemiologic investigation. The course prepares the student to apply epidemiologic concepts to solve public health problems.

​By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Apply evidence-based principles and the scientific knowledge base to critical evaluation and decision-making in public health.
  • Describe a public health problem in terms of magnitude, person, time and place.
  • Draw appropriate inferences from epidemiological data.
  • Evaluate the strengths and limitations of epidemiological reports.
  • Explain how systems models can be tested and validated.
  • Prioritize individual, organizational, and community concerns and resources for public health programs.
  • Apply descriptive techniques commonly used to summarize public health data.
  • Explain the role of biology in the ecological model of population-based health.
Duration: 6 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 4
This course examines the impacts of social determinants of health among local, national, and global populations. Attention to how race, class, power, wealth, structural bias, racism, and sexism undermine health is incorporated as a personal exploration of cultural competence. Students explore mitigating health inequities from a micro and macro lens.

​By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Evaluate social identity and intersectionality at a personal level.
  • Identify how inequities manifest themselves at the institutional, individual, and internal levels.
  • Discuss the means by which structural bias, social inequities and racism undermine health and create challenges to achieving health equity at organizational, community and societal levels.
  • Propose strategies to identify stakeholders and build coalitions and partnerships for influencing public health outcomes.
  • Describe the importance of cultural competence in communicating public health content.
Duration: 6 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 4
This course begins with an overview of common policy perspectives, before moving on to discuss major relevant policy issues in the United States healthcare system and elsewhere. Healthcare policy impacting private and public entities including Medicare, Medicaid, Department of Defense, Veterans Administration, Indian Health Services are examined. The course concludes with an examination of influencing policy development, including media and community initiatives.
Duration: 6 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 4
This course focuses on environmental and occupational health and epidemiology. An examination of human-environment interactions and the Anthropocene concept as well as environmental influences on health and occupational health.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Identify the major environmental and occupational risk factors for health-related outcomes in human population.
  • Analyze environmental and occupational health problems, risks, and mitigation.
  • Evaluate environmental or occupational policies for their impact on public health and health equity.
Duration: 6 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 4
Using a systems-based approach to explore public health responses to biological and radiological outbreaks. Attention is given to legal, governance and ethical dimensions of risk management in vulnerability assessment. Emergency planning and preparedness for ‘major incidents’ are a foci.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Describe the pattern of burden of disease in a country using standard fertility and mortality indicators, estimates of disease burden measured in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), and data on disease incidence, prevalence, risk factors and geographic disparities.
  • Discuss exposure-disease relationships in human populations.
  • Communicate biological risks and prevention strategies to potentially affected communities using inclusive language.
  • Apply professional responsibility and ethics to mitigating risk of biological disease outbreaks.
  • Design an emergency preparedness plan to respond to a global pandemic.
Duration: 6 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 4
This course addresses development of core competencies needed to plan, implement and evaluate public and community health interventions. Students are introduced to a range of theories, evidence-based strategies, and resources critical to effective public health practice.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Critically analyze the program development process.
  • Support the concepts of cultural diversity and inclusion as it relates to population values and program planning.
  • Use an evidence-based design approach to draft a marketing plan to a target population.
  • Select appropriate tools to evaluate a public health program based on process, impact, and outcome objectives.
  • Apply a process improvement model to a given public health intervention.
  • Use a logic model to depict the relationship between program activities and effects

Ranked among the Top 50 in U.S. News & World Report's "Best Regional Universities West" (2024)

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