ANN ARBOR—Ever considered a career in public health? The looming health worker shortage offers many displaced employees a fresh career start, and now qualified applicants can get tuition assistance through the state to attend the University of Michigan.

The No Worker Left Behind program now covers most of the tuition for qualified applicants who wish to earn a Certificate in the Foundations of Public Health at the U-M School of Public Health.

Coursework is taught entirely online by U-M public health faculty. Displaced workers who qualify under the state’s No Worker Left Behind program can get assistance up to $5,000 per year for a maximum of $10,000 over two years for tuition, books and fees.

Students take five courses and earn a Certificate in the Foundations of Public Health and 16 graduate credits that they can apply toward a master’s degree at U-M or elsewhere. Courses include: Principles of Environmental Health Sciences; Psychosocial Factors in Health-Related Behavior; Introduction to Biostatistics; Strategies and Uses of Epidemiology; and Survey of the U.S. Health Care System.

The Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Development approved the funding for the certificate program last month. Students receive the money to enroll in the program through their individual training accounts. The fall 2009 application deadline for the program is July 15.

The University of Michigan School of Public Health (www.sph.umich.edu) has been working to promote health and prevent disease since 1941, and is consistently ranked among the top five public health schools in the nation. Whether making new discoveries in the lab or researching and educating in the field, SPH faculty, students and alumni are deployed around the globe to promote and protect our health.
For more on the Certificate in the Foundations of Public Health: www.sph.umich.edu/distance

For more on No Worker Left Behind: www.michigan.gov/nwlb

The program has also been approved for listing on the State of Michigan’s Career Education Consumer Report Web site at: www.mycareereducation.org/training.asp

Certificate in the Foundations of Public HealthNo Worker Left BehindThe program has also been approved for listing on the State of Michigan’s Career Education Consumer Report Web