Undergraduate public health at 4-year institutions: it's here to stay.

Undergraduate public health education at 4-year institutions, those with and without graduate public health education, has grown rapidly during the first decade of the 21st century since the IOM recommended that "all undergraduates have access to education in public health." Much of this growth has been guided by the Educated Citizen and Public Health initiative, a collaboration of arts and sciences and public health educators that encourages introductory course work in public health, epidemiology, and global health plus undergraduate minors and majors in public health. The Educated Citizen and Public Health model, as opposed to existing professional models, envisions core public health education based on the Association of American Colleges and Universities' Liberal Education and America's Promise essential learning outcomes that encourage experiential learning, evidence-based thinking, a global and community focus, plus integration and synthesis.

Undergraduate public health: preparing engaged citizens as future health professionals.

This paper addresses two questions: (1) How to explain, from the vantage point of the liberal arts, the value of integrative public health education for undergraduates, and (2) How, simultaneously, to make the case for such a program of study toward a career in health care. A new perspective is offered on baccalaureate study in preparation for engaged citizenship and for pre-professional healthcare education, including discussion of benefits to faculty.