In the 19th and early 20th centuries, nurses across the United States extended health care and social services to the nation’s neediest communities through programs like Manhattan’s Henry Street Settlement, which provided medical care, shelter, food, and education to the immigrant families of the Lower East Side. In 1893, Henry Street founder Lillian Wald coined a new term needed to describe this interdisciplinary work: “public health nursing.”
Today, the field of public health encompasses many professions—clinicians, scientists, administrators, educators, policy makers, community leaders—but the interdisciplinary ethos of Wald and her contemporaries lives on. This fall, Boston College will build on their legacy with the launch of a new undergraduate major in Global Public Health and the Common Good, administered by the Connell School of Nursing in partnership with the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society.
Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., founding director, Global Public Health and the Common Good
The B.A./B.S. program will welcome an inaugural cohort of 15 students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. Some intend to pursue careers in nursing, while others are headed toward medicine, dentistry, public health, and even law and international relations.
“Our faculty come from nearly every school at BC, but the choice to house the degree within the Connell School was a natural one because of nursing’s deep and long-standing connections with public health,” said Professor of Biology Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., the program’s founding director.
CSON Associate Professor Joyce Edmonds, who helped design BC’s first public health sequence, views the major as an opportunity for Connell School faculty to contribute their public health expertise to building something greater.
“As nurses and researchers, we can share our knowledge with the broader population at BC while also learning from colleagues who approach public health issues from other perspectives.”
A moral dimension
Boston College is not alone in expanding public health education—once primarily offered at the graduate level—to undergraduates: according to the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, the number of undergraduate public health graduates grew 1,100 percent between 2001 and 2020. In Landrigan’s view, though, BC’s liberal arts curriculum and Jesuit, Catholic framework make the new program unique.
“Any public health program understands that there are differences in health between rich and poor and majority and minority,” Landrigan said. “But ours is grounded in the Catholic idea of the preferential option for the poor—the notion that these differences are not just issues to be observed, but rather that they have a moral dimension—and we impress upon our students that they have a calling to do something about remedying these disparities.”
The major’s eight required core courses include classes on health inequities and ethics as well as specialized courses in areas ranging from public health law and policy to epidemiology and biostatistics. Students will also complete two electives and an interdisciplinary Senior Capstone Experience. Across the curriculum, there is an emphasis on understanding the social determinants of health in a global context.
“You can’t address public health without thinking globally,” Edmonds said. “But our global focus also reflects the particular expertise of our faculty and our vision for what graduates need to know to be successful in the field.”
Interdisciplinary origins
The road to the new major began at a new-faculty orientation in the fall of 2012, when Edmonds met Summer Sherburne Hawkins, who was joining the Boston College School of Social Work (SSW) as BC’s first epidemiologist. Despite coming from different fields, the two scholars connected over their interest in maternal-child health and public health. Their chance meeting led to research collaborations, shared publications, and conversations about public health education at BC.
Joyce Edmonds and Summer Hawkins
“At the time, there were lots of people here doing public health work, but there wasn’t yet a community or program around that work,” Edmonds said.
With the partnership of the late SSW Dean Alberto Godenzi and the blessing of Susan Gennaro and Maureen Kenny—then the deans of CSON and the Lynch School, respectively—Hawkins and Edmonds convened a faculty committee to design a three-course public health sequence for undergraduates. From the beginning, they wanted the courses to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the field.
“Any public health program understands that there are differences in health between rich and poor and majority and minority,” Landrigan said. “But ours is grounded in the Catholic idea of the preferential option for the poor—the notion that these differences are not just issues to be observed, but rather that they have a moral dimension—and we impress upon our students that they have a calling to do something about remedying these disparities.”
The major’s eight required core courses include classes on health inequities and ethics as well as specialized courses in areas ranging from public health law and policy to epidemiology and biostatistics. Students will also complete two electives and an interdisciplinary Senior Capstone Experience. Across the curriculum, there is an emphasis on understanding the social determinants of health in a global context.
“You can’t address public health without thinking globally,” Edmonds said. “But our global focus also reflects the particular expertise of our faculty and our vision for what graduates need to know to be successful in the field.”
Hear from three Global Public Health majors about their experience and their plans for the future.
Jenna Mu ’22
FAVORITE COURSE: Children’s Health and the Environment
CURRENT ROLE: Truman-Albright Fellow, Public Health Analyst, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Federal Office of Rural Health Policy
“Jack Murray and I were the first two students to complete an independent major in Global Public Health. The major was a perfect fusion of my interests in dentistry and political science. My goal is to be a dentist for underserved populations while also working on the policy side to help families like mine navigate linguistic and cultural barriers to care. The faculty at BC have inspired me by showing me that it is possible to maintain a career with a foot in both practice and policy.”
Naomi Alter ’23
FAVORITE COURSE: Introduction to Epidemiology
EXPERIENCE: Boston College Delegate to COP27: The United Nations Climate Change Conference
“Attending COP27 as an undergraduate was a great joy and privilege. I’m interested in epidemiology and environmental contributions to disease, and I learned from experts on these topics from around the world. One of my biggest takeaways from the conference was that you can’t just have climate scientists saying we need to lower warming; you need legal experts, world leaders, health professionals, and people from all disciplines. In my career, I hope to contribute to this effort from my own lens.”
Sebastian Cota ’24
FAVORITE COURSE: Public Health Law and Policy
INTERNSHIPS: Boston Children’s Hospital, Mass General Hospital COVID Corps
“When I got the news about the launch of the official major, I was excited. Growing up in southeast Los Angeles, I was exposed to the health issues and barriers that my community faces, and I was interested in studying public health before I even got to BC. I believe the courses I’m taking will help me become a more well-rounded primary care physician, because there’s more to practicing medicine than science and physiology, and your zip code matters as much as your genetic code.”