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Applications To Schools Of Public
Health Increase Significantly During COVID-19 Pandemic
Surge Called A
“Huge Relief”
Applications to
Schools of Public Health have increased by more than 40% from March
March 2020 to March 2021 according to estimates provided by the
Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH). The
actual number of applicants as of March 2021 stood at 24,176 for 126
accredited and 6 non-accredited programs. The 40% increase took place
after the schools had a greater than 20% increase in March 2020
compared to 2019 after WHO declared a pandemic. Epidemiology is ranked
first among the seven graduate level areas of study indicated on
applications.
According to ASPPH,
growth in applications is not a new phenomenon for public health as
there has been growth in both graduate and undergraduate programs for
the past two decades. Besides sparking increased interest in studying
public health, the pandemic has also produced other changes to
employment, to higher education application processes and to course
delivery that help account for the surge in applications. Another
contributing factor to the increased interest in public health
according to the Nation’s Health newspaper is the national focus on
social and racial justice sparked by the murder of George Floyd
in May 2020. Racial inequity, systemic racism, and social determinants
of health are all amenable to further study and to being tackled by
public health skill sets.
According to Laura
Magantildea, president and CEO of the ASPPH, quoted in Nation’s
Health, “Just one year before the pandemic, we saw a decrease in
applications and, if you look at the past 35 years or so, it looked
like we had hit a plateau…This is a huge relief.”
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