Is public health a good career?

Yes, public health is a good career. This field offers a wide assortment of career options and does not require a specific prerequisite degree. Unlike many occupations in the healthcare field, public health workers typically do not deal with actual patient care. Rather, public health professionals gather information, conduct research, and educate individuals.

How To Become A Public Health Internship: What It Is and Career Path

What is a public health internship and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Amy Carroll-Scott Ph.D.,

Marty Jordan Ph.D.

Public health Internships allow public health students to gain practical learning experience by working alongside professionals in the field. Students may also be required to attend lectures, leadership training, and seminars during their internship. The interns may also carry out individual work with mentors and supervisors with various responsibilities such as analyzing health statistics, promoting health programs, writing grants, and so on. Your work can be restricted to a specific department throughout the course and may involve rotation from one department to the other. Public health interns may also be asked to prepare oral and written presentations after their internship.

The purpose of a public health internship is usually to apply skills learned in the classroom to real-life public health issues. Interns may be required to work full time or just for a few hours a week. Each school may set specific requirements in terms of prerequisite courses to take and pass to participate in such internships. Public health internships earn $34,671 averagely per year. Plus, the field experiences students gain may be beneficial for them in finding employment in the future.

What general advice would you give to a public health internship?

Dr. Amy Carroll-Scott Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health

I can't resist the opportunity to tell graduates that this is a critical time to join the public health workforce. While there are always jobs in medicine, and our medical systems are an important part of our public health infrastructure, research has shown for a long time that our health is 80% determined by these social determinants of health I mentioned above, and only 20% by genetics and health care. That means that to create sustainable improvements to the public's health, these issues will need to be addressed. This is always true, but never more true than in a global pandemic where living conditions and economic resources are such dramatic protective or risk factors. Public health is the field - both in research and in practice - that works across disciplines in a truly collaborative way.

People can't be healthy if they don't have stable housing or enough nutritious food to eat, and so the solutions require collaboration, curiosity, and creativity. And your colleagues will be passionate. My advice is to seek a public health major or minor in college to see what it's about, or think about a 5-year degree where you will graduate with a bachelor's and master's in public health. And if you've recently graduated, look for MPH programs or spend a year or two in one of the above kinds of public health settings to kick-start your public health career. We will be excited to have you! We know it will take all of our passionate public health workforce to manage the COVID response and longer-term recovery, and finally address the generations of racial and socioeconomic health inequities that a country like the United States has the capacity to solve.

ScorePublic Health InternshipUS Average

Salary

3.0

Avg. Salary $37,987

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.9

Growth rate 6%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.23%

Asian 5.65%

Black or African American 9.93%

Hispanic or Latino 14.18%

Unknown 6.17%

White 62.84%

Gender

female 67.93%

male 32.07%

Age - 45

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 45

Stress level

7.9

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.3

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.6

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a public health internship

Explore public health internship education requirements

Most common public health internship degrees

Bachelor's

73.7 %

Master's

15.2 %

Associate

6.2 %

Start to develop specific public health internship skills

Skills	Percentages
Environmental Health	13.50%
EHS	10.69%
Patients	7.37%
Public Health	6.57%
OSHA	6.17%

Complete relevant public health internship training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-2 years on post-employment, on-the-job training. New public health interns learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a public health internship based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real public health internship resumes.

Research public health internship duties and responsibilities

Manage busy immunization clinics overseeing the administration of thousands of immunizations per day.
Assist in employee training for LOTO, fork truck operation and behavioral base safety program.
Provide assistance during internal safety audits, asbestos abatement management, OSHA respirator fitting.
Train and educate large groups on job safety awareness and CPR.

Prepare your public health internship resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your public health internship resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a public health internship resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable public health internship resume templates

Build a professional public health internship resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your public health internship resume.