Environmental Health
We are a nationally-accredited MPH program that prepares advanced students for an exciting career working to solve the most pressing environmental problems of today and tomorrow. Environmental Health professionals anticipate, recognize, evaluate and control hazards that can affect human health in both the natural and built environment. Environmental Health professionals are scientists who apply their skills to solving environmental problems. Our graduates are in demand and are widely employed in the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, universities, environmental consulting firms, food supply and distribution companies, state and federal government, and county health departments. Experts trained in Environmental Health are increasingly short in supply but high in demand; for a brief illustration of what we do visit the Association of Environmental Health Academic Programs.
For more background about what we do, who hires our students and what kinds of job opportunities await them, take a look at some of these links:
- Association of Environmental Health Academic Programs (AEHAP): What is Environmental Health?
- Careers in Environmental Health
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS): Environmental Health; Topics
- Centers for Disease Control (CDC): Environmental Health
- National Environmental Health Association, NEHA
- American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA): Industrial Hygiene Careers
- Environmental Health News
Further Information
- Dr. Melanie Vile
- 610-436-2360 (SECC 277)
- Email Dr. Melanie Vile
Learning Objectives
Upon graduation a student with an MPH should be able to:
- Describe the direct and indirect human, ecological and safety effects of major environmental and occupational agents.
- Describe genetic, physiologic and psychosocial factors that affect susceptibility to adverse health outcomes following exposure to environmental hazards.
- Describe federal and state regulatory programs, guidelines and authorities that control environmental health issues.
- Specify current environmental risk assessment methods.
- Specify approaches for assessing, preventing and controlling environmental hazards that pose risks to human health and safety.
- Explain the general mechanisms of toxicity in eliciting a toxic response to various environmental exposures.
- Discuss various risk management and risk communication approaches in relation to issues of environmental justice and equity.
- Develop a testable model of environmental insult.
These competencies were developed by the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH), 2006.
Advising Sheets
Post-MPH Career Opportunities
Many of the skills gained through the Master of Public Health are transferable across a wide range of career paths. Here are some of the positions our MPH-Environmental Health graduates have accepted:
- Business Owner, Laboratory Director, & Analytical Microscopist
- Chief Microbiologist
- COVID-19 Outbreak Surveillance Investigator
- Executive Director
- Research Associate/Senior Researcher/Study Manager
- Compliance Safety & Health Officer
- Disease Investigation Specialist
- Doctoral Student (PhD or DrPh)/Postdoctoral Research Scholar
- Emergency Management Planner
- Environmental Health & Safety Manager
- Environmental Remediation Manager
- Epidemiology Program Specialist
- Inspector of Industrial Waste and Backflow Compliance
- Senior Lab Technician
- Laboratory Examiner
- Leveraged Industrial Hygiene Specialist
- Manager of Wastewater Operations
- Occupational Health & Safety Manager
- Senior Environmental Health Safety Specialist
- Senior Food Safety Analyst
- Senior Study QC Analyst
Our graduates can be found in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Here are some of the organizations where you’ll find WCU MPH alumni:
- Aqua America
- AstraZeneca
- Bioclinica
- Burlington County Office of Emergency Planning
- Chester County Department of Health
- Dow Chemical Company
- Kinder Morgan, Inc.
- Pennsylvania Department of Health, Bureau of Laboratories
- Penn Medicine
- Philadelphia Water
- Occupational Safety & Health Administration
- Wawa, Inc.
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MPH Environmental Health students running tests and analyzing samples in the new lab.
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Department of Health faculty work with students in the lab on various research projects
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The Environmental Health Lab is equipped with advanced technology and instrumentation
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Undergraduate and Graduate students in the Environmental Health program conducting research
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Environmental Health students collecting water samples from local sources
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Environmental Health faculty working with students out in the field
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Environmental Health students conducting research in the lab.
