Masters of Public Health in Health Promotion and Urban Planning (MPH/MURP)

Our Health Promotion and Community Health graduate programs prepare you to drive social change, advance health equity, and remove barriers to community health. 

The OHSU-PSU School of Public Health (SPH) unites two outstanding research universities that have spent decades working to help reduce health disparities and designing innovative solutions to public health challenges. 

Our graduate degrees in Health Promotion and Community Health equip you to identify the root causes of health problems and to devise interventions that create healthier communities from local to global levels. You will have opportunities to work with leading experts in the areas of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD), social determinants of health, sexual and reproductive health, food systems and nutrition, physical activity, aging, and other pressing issues. 

As a unique partnership between two world-class universities, the OHSU-PSU SPH unites health and scientific expertise with advanced scholarship in governance, public policy, urban studies, social work, and education. We offer a stand-alone Master of Public Health in Health Promotion, as well as dual degrees that pair the Health Promotion MPH with a Master of Social Work (MSW) or Master of Urban Planning (MURP). Our terminal degree in this discipline is a Ph.D. in Community Health. 

These programs excel because of their:

• Commitment to equitable, socially just access to health and health-supporting resources for all.  
• Holistic approach that is built on collaboration among experts from multiple academic disciplines.
• Emphasis on solving real-world health challenges.
• Partnerships and engagement with a breadth of populations and social groups.  
• Deep relationships with state, county, and local agencies; schools; nonprofit organizations; and other community stakeholders.
• Tight-knit culture that fosters supportive relationships among faculty and students.
• Direct access to OHSU’s medical and scientific experts and PSU’s leading scholars in community engagement, public policy, urban affairs, and the social sciences.

MPH in Health Promotion/Master of Urban Planning Dual Degree

By combining an MPH in Health Promotion with Portland State’s nationally ranked Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) degree, you can sharpen your ability to examine and understand the effects of “place” on the health of communities and society, in general. You will develop tools to promote public health through community structures and systems such as transportation, housing, open space, population density, air and water quality, and public safety.

The MURP degree includes advanced training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other analytical methods for understanding the organization of cities and metropolitan regions, and the two degrees, together, will enable you to assess the impacts of such organization on the public’s health. You can complete the MPH/MURP dual degree program in three years, a full year less than if each degree had been completed alone.

Accreditations and Rankings

The OHSU-PSU School of Public Health is accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH).