Core Competencies

The NYU MPH program follows an adapted version of the MPH Core Competency model developed by the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH). Our curriculum uses this model as a foundation for ensuring that our graduates are well-prepared to enter rewarding careers in public health. The thirteen Core Competencies are divided into two categories: Discipline-Specific Competencies and Interdisciplinary/Cross-Cutting Competencies in which it is increasingly important that MPH students meet upon graduation. As an interdisciplinary program, our curriculum is designed to ensure that all MPH students are competent in each of these areas.

Discipline Specific Competencies

1. Develop and apply statistical reasoning and methods in addressing, analyzing and solving problems in public health; health care; and biomedical, clinical and population-based research.

2. Recognize environmental factors including biological, physical and chemical factors that affect the health of a community.

3. Understand the patterns of disease and injury in human populations and apply to the control of health problems.

4. Understand practices associated with the delivery, quality, and costs of health care for individuals and populations.

5. Apply managerial and policy approaches regarding the structure, process and outcomes of health services including the costs, financing, organization, outcomes and accessibility of care.

6. Apply constructs of behavioral, social and cultural theories related to individual and population health and health disparities over the life course.

Interdisciplinary/Cross-Cutting Competencies

7. Gather, process, and present information to different audiences in-person, through information technologies, or through media channels.

8. Demonstrate the ability to interact with both diverse individuals and communities to produce or impact an intended public health outcome.

9. Demonstrate the ability to create and communicate a shared vision for a changing future; champion solutions to organizational and community challenges; and energize commitment to goals.

10. Incorporate public health biology – the biological and molecular context of public health – into public health practice.

11. Demonstrate ethical choices, values and professional practices implicit in public health decisions while considering the effect of choices on community stewardship, equity, social justice and accountability.

12. Demonstrate the ability to plan for the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies to improve individual and community health.

13. Recognize system level properties that result from dynamic interactions among human and social systems and how they affect the relationships among individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and environments.