About
Join us and become a leader in addressing public health challenges.
The Time is Now
Our well-established, vitally important Public Health Programs offer a comprehensive, innovative, supportive way to expand your knowledge and amplify your ability to serve.
Our broad-based, inclusive approach allows TUC students and graduates to understand the human and human-rights issues surrounding healthcare in this country and throughout the world.
We offer flexible class schedules that are stacked within 2 or 3 days per week leaving open the possibility of part-time work. We also offer many courses in a hybrid format with course instruction that alternates between online and in-person meetings weekly.
Our Mission
The mission of the Public Health Program at Touro University California is to improve the health and well-being of local and global communities through education, service, and research. In our programs, we integrate public health principles to enrich learning and prepare the next generation of leaders to address community health problems. By blending public health science with clinical medicine and other disciplines, we equip both independent and joint degree students with the tools needed to develop solutions for community well-being. Our inter-professional approach fosters collaboration across fields, ensuring graduates are well-prepared to lead in addressing complex public health issues.
Concentrations:
- Community Action for Health Concentration
- Global Health Concentration
- Criminal Legal Systems & Health Concentration
Our Goals
- Help students develop, promote, and comprehend public health principles ensuring all program graduates can demonstrate knowledge and skill in the core areas of public health.
- Prepare students to practice successfully in diverse health service, academic, and research settings.
- Help faculty and students develop and participate in research to improve public health.
- Collaborate and consult with community agencies and others committed to improving public health.
- Evaluate and continuously improve the education, research, and service activities of the program.
Public Health Competencies
All Concentrations
- Apply epidemiological methods to the breadth of settings and situations in public health practice
- Select quantitative and qualitative data collection methods appropriate for a given public health context
- Analyze quantitative and qualitative data using biostatistics, informatics, computer-based programming, and software, as appropriate.
- Interpret results of data analysis for public health research, policy, or practice
- Compare the organization, structure, and function of health care, public health, and regulatory systems across national and international settings
- Assess population needs, assets, and capacities that affect communities’ health
- Apply awareness of cultural values and practices to the design, implementation, or critique of public health policies or programs
- Design a population-based policy, program, project, or intervention
- Explain the basic principles and tools of budget and resource management
- Select methods to evaluate public health programs
- Discuss multiple dimensions of the policy-making process, including the roles of ethics and evidence
- Propose strategies to identify stakeholders and build coalitions and partnerships for influencing public health outcomes
- Advocate for political, social, or economic policies and programs that will improve health
- Evaluate policies for their impact on public health
- Apply leadership and/or management principles to address a relevant issue
- Apply negotiation and mediation skills to address organizational or community challenges
- Select communication strategies for different audiences and sectors
- Communicate audience-appropriate (i.e., non-academic, non-peer audience) public health content both in writing and through oral presentation
- Describe the importance of cultural competence in communicating public health content
- Integrate perspectives from other sectors and/or professions to promote and advance population health
- Apply systems thinking tools to a public health issue
Community Action for Health Concentration
- Demonstrate an understanding of the mechanisms and pathways by which social, economic, and historical factors contribute to health
- Identify and analyze strategies aimed at improving community health
- Demonstrate competence using specific community health planning data sources to assist community collaborative groups in program/action prioritization
- Apply community-based participatory approaches to the development and implementation of community research, interventions, and policies
Global Health Concentration
- Analyze global health measurements, burdens, and challenges.
- Synthesize social, economic, and political forces shaping global health with solutions for harm reduction and improved health outcomes
- Apply global health policy and intervention strategies to address health problems in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs)
- Synthesize the relationship between culture, health systems, human rights, and global health.
- Analyze ethical issues in global health work within economic, political, and cultural contexts.
- Examine the historical origins of the U.S. criminal justice system and analyze the development of legal systems and the impacts of mass incarceration.
- Examine U.S. law and public health at the intersection of the criminal justice system.
- Evaluate the collateral consequences of criminal justice policy at local, state, and federal levels and their impact on community health and well-being.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the mechanisms and pathways by which social, economic, and historical factors contribute to health.
- Demonstrate competence using specific community health planning data sources to assist community collaborative groups in program/action prioritization.
- Apply community-based participatory approaches to the development and implementation of community research, interventions, and policies.
Criminal Justice and Health Concentration
- Examine the historical origins of the U.S. criminal justice system and analyze the development of legal systems and the impacts of mass incarceration.
- Examine U.S. law and public health at the intersection of the criminal justice system.
- Evaluate the collateral consequences of criminal justice policy at local, state, and federal levels and their impact on community health and well-being.
MPH Leadership
Gayle Cummings, PsyD, MPH
Assistant Dean & Program Director
Public Health Program Director, Gayle Cummings, received her MPH from the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley and did an NIH Fellowship with the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at UCSF.
She co-founded the Center for the Analysis of Multicultural Issues (CAMI), a firm, that conducts program and research evaluation, strategic planning and analysis for disease prevention and health promotion programs.
As co-principal and consultant for CAMI, she helped develop, implement, and evaluate programs focused on assisting underserved communities throughout California.
Accreditation
TUC Accreditation
Touro University California is accredited by WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC).
MPH Accreditation
The Touro University California (TUC) Public Health Program is accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). On December 9, 2022, the TUC Public Health Program received notice of accreditation from the Council regarding the decision of its Board of Councilors to reaccredit the MPH Program at TUC for a 7-year term, the maximum period of accreditation for a graduate public health program