It is traditional within universities that a school of public health resides within a faculty of medicine. Being “stand alone” means that the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health stands as a separate faculty dedicated solely to public health. As a stand-alone faculty, we are able to focus our education programs, research activities and community engagement initiatives on a preventative, rather than a curative, model of health.

Through our research, education, and community engagement programs, we work toward comprehensive solutions to protect and improve the health of people locally and globally.

Our graduate-level educational programs include epidemiology, health promotion, global health, health services and policy research, biostatistics, occupational health and environmental health.

Research in the School is informed by a variety of core disciplines in public health including biostatistics, environmental health, epidemiology, global health, health policy and management, and health promotion and socio-behavioural health sciences. In addition to running productive individual research programs, faculty members in the School of Public Health participate with colleagues and partners in a variety of teams, networks and consortia.

Public health is proactive and preventive in approach. Its aim is to maintain and improve the health of communities and populations. It goes beyond individual treatment and crosses multiple fields of study such as the health, social and human sciences.

It is about:

- preventing illness and injuries before they happen
- ensuring people have safe drinking water and clean air to breathe
- finding ways to make healthy eating and lifestyle choices easier
- developing policies to improve health services

We are Canada’s first stand-alone faculty dedicated solely to public health. As of October 2012, we are also Canada’s first accredited School of Public Health. We are committed to promoting and protecting health, preventing disease and injury across Alberta, Canada and around the world.

Not only is employment available in a variety of sectors, but the career opportunities for School of Public Health graduates are also equally diverse. Our graduates find employment as health educators or officers, surveillance or policy analysts, program consultants or managers, health promotion practitioners, or workplace wellness facilitators–just to name a few. They work in community-based agencies, schools, universities, hospitals and health centres and municipal, provincial and federal governments.