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Department of Health Promotion Sciences

Message from the Chair, Neil Hann, MPH, CHES

Neil Hann

Welcome to the Department of Health Promotion Sciences!  As an interdisciplinary profession, our students, alumni, and faculty are comprised of community health and social workers, social scientists, allied health and medical professionals, and many other types of public health practitioners. Collectively, our graduates work as agents of change to advance the health of individuals, families, and communities. Examples of this work include health program design, coordination, and evaluation, health education, grant writing, research coordination, and other leadership roles in education, nonprofit, healthcare, and health department sectors. We invite you to explore our faculty and featured alumni pages to discover more about the rewarding and diverse opportunities found in a health promotion sciences degree.

Role of the Health Promotion Professional

Health promotion is the application of the social and behavioral sciences, educational strategies and techniques, and epidemiological methods to reducing health risks and leveraging health assets in individuals, families, social networks, neighborhoods, organizations, and communities.  A human’s right to self-determination, dignity, inclusion, and social justice are several of the guiding principles of health promotion practice.

Organizational Settings: Graduates are recruited by public health agencies at national, regional, state, tribal, and local levels, including insurance companies, health departments, clinics, workplace wellness programs, community-based organizations, K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.

Professional Roles:   Graduates provide health program planning, implementation, and evaluation skills to local, state, national, and tribal organizations.

Specific Learning Objectives: Skills developed through the program include community assessment, diagnosis and development, program planning, program implementation, and program evaluation.

Curricular Areas

  • Knowledge and skills related to program stages, including community assessment, program planning, program implementation and program evaluation.
  • Knowledge and skills related to levels of intervention, including working with individuals and small groups, network strategies, organizational development and change, community development, public policy, and mass media.
  • Content areas, including chronic diseases, communicable diseases, health promotion/disease prevention strategies for screening, stress, exercise, nutrition and tobacco use, and intentional and unintentional injuries.
  • Community health workers as a strategy to reach health equity
  • Knowledge base of social and behavioral science theories, research methods, epidemiology, and biostatistics.
  • Familiarity with varying populations, including racial and ethnic groups, children, adolescents, adults, elderly, the disenfranchised, rural and urban residents, and genders.
  • Familiarity with health promotion settings, including schools, work sites, hospitals and health care providers, government agencies, and other community organizations.
  • Professional issues, including philosophy, principles and ethical issues in health promotion, the history of public health, and knowledge of the various professional organizations.

Contact Us

For more information, please contact:

Neil Hann, MPH, CHES
Hudson College of Public Health
Department of Health Promotion Sciences
801 N.E. 13th Street, Room 465
Oklahoma City, OK 73104
Telephone (405) 271-2017 ext. 47722
Email: Neil-Hann@ouhsc.edu

For questions about the Master of Public Health (MPH) or Master of Science (MS) programs, please call 271-2017 or e-mail Vicki Johnson.