Public Health degree – BS/BA | University of the Pacific

Empower healthier communities through data, policy and outreach

As a public health professional, you’ll play a vital role in shaping healthier individuals and communities when you receive a degree in public health and community wellness at University of the Pacific. Graduates ensure the efficient and effective delivery of essential non-clinical health care services. You’ll learn how to craft persuasive public service campaigns to encourage positive behavior change, leverage data analytics to optimize health care delivery in facilities like hospitals and nursing homes and contribute to policy development.

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Learn by doing

As a public health and community wellness student, you will gain practical experience by working in the field with health professionals, first observing and then participating. You will venture into the workplace to learn from real-life experiences and return to your professors to analyze and reflect on these experiences.

Three-year BA option

If you stay on track, you could shave a year off your undergraduate work. With a three-year Bachelor of Arts degree, you can get significant savings on tuition and a jumpstart on your career.

Learn more about the three-year plan

Careers and community involvement

Even as a student your work as a public health and community wellness student can have a lasting impact in your field. Pacific graduates have gone on to serve the community and generate change at regional and federal health care agencies as well as local and global non-profits which include:

Blue Shield
Contra Costa County Health Services
Global Brigades
Stockton Emergency Food Bank

18.5%

Expected growth in health studies-related occupations through 2026 in California

15%

Expected growth in health studies-related occupations through 2026, nationally

43k

Medical and health services managers job openings expected by 2026 in California

Public Health and Community Wellness major Caitlyn Truong

OUTSTANDING STUDENT

Caitlyn Truong '25

Caitlyn has been interested in health care as well as meeting and interacting with people since high school. She was able to combine these interests in her public health and community wellness major at Pacific. Although she is still trying to figure out what her career might be, she believes this non-clinical pathway will prepare her to play a part in making changes and initiating progress in health care policies.

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Success After Pacific

Carrie Balthrop

Carrie Balthrop '16 is a senior health education specialist with the Contra Costa County Health Services where she focuses on tobacco policy education.

Learn more about Carrie Balthrop

Success After Pacific

Kelsey Belomy

Kelsey's English degree has taken her to a career at Blue Shield where she works as a technical writer. She uses her background in English to make medical information easier to understand.

Learn more about Kelsey

Choose your public health degree track

Pacific’s public health and community wellness program offers you a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts degree that have their own unique concentrations. They both prepare you for studies like epidemiology, health education and outreach, health law, bioethics and health care administration, and the policy and psychosocial aspects of health care.

The BS in public health and community wellness prepares you for a career and/or graduate study in the fields of clinical health care, with an emphasis on population and community-based health care or biomedical research.

Pacific's BA in public health and community wellness program prepares you for a rewarding career in one of the many nonclinical areas of health care that require a broad base of knowledge in the social sciences and the humanities.