If you’re looking to earn a doctoral public health degree online, you’re likely drawn to the program by the flexibility and utility it gives you. Doctorates in Public Health often take four to six years to complete and can require a time-consuming residency. Time consumption isn’t what you signed up for when you began looking into earning your DRPH online. Taking your public health degree classes online will likely allow you to adjust your learning schedule to fit your ongoing responsibilities, will cost less, and can give you the same opportunities that a traditional, on-campus program would. A common feature in a doctorate of public health program is a residency. Fortunately, not every online public health doctorate requires a residency. Some do, and others require some shorter, on-campus attended classes or workshops, and some don’t require a residency at all. You’ll likely have to show up to your school at some point, but not always.
We ranked some of the top public health doctorate degrees online here, based on their value and academic reputations. The programs on our list have a variety of requirements but were chosen in part because they can help you earn a life-changing degree without uprooting your life, the work you must do to sustain yourself and the relationships you maintain. The Internet is at its best when it’s enhancing our real lives, and that’s exactly what earning a public health degree online can do for you.
Look closely into the programs you’re considering. Here at OMPH, we’ve worked hard to let you know the vital details about public health degrees online, but do your due diligence and research on the requirements of any program you’re interested in. You’ll find a wide variety in this field at large, but not so many public health doctoral online offerings. Regardless, of the online public health degrees that exist, there’s still a range of features, methods and more that sets these DRPH programs apart from one another.
For example, Johns Hopkins DRPH program (which began in June 2017), requires students to attend Summer and Winter Institutes in Baltimore one week each June, and five days in January. Not an extensive residency requirement, but enough to put some prospective students off the school. Then there’s Loma Linda University’s online Doctor of Public Health program. This program only requires students visit the Loma Linda campus in sunny California during their research process in defense of proposals, dissertations, and for graduation. Not too shabby. Loma Linda also lets you choose to specialize in Health Education, Nutrition, Epidemiology, Preventative Care, or Health Policy and Leadership. Being able to select a concentration to focus on that matches your interests and goals is a great way to ensure you find the best position for you after earning your DRPH.
A residency shouldn’t necessarily prevent you from considering a program, but it’s an important factor in your decision. Fortunately, not every DRPH program requires a residency, so the choice is yours.
