Public Health Project Manager Careers
For those that like to think outside of the box, a career in public health project management may be the ideal professional choice. Careers in public heath allow a person to truly help their own community through helping to keep good overall general health, and these careers also offer a very satisfactory salary as well as worthwhile job stability.
The demand for qualified project managers in the public health field is high, and this leads to many vacancies being available for professionals looking to get into this field. These exciting careers have quite a number of benefits to offer those who work in the field, and a career in public health project management is one that can provide professional satisfaction to any type of individual!
What Is A Public Health Project Manager?
A public health project manager will be in charge of developing and managing new public health projects implemented throughout a population or community. It is the role of the public health manager to make sure that all timelines and budgets are being adhered to as they develop and implement new public health projects geared towards improving the overall general health of a group of individuals as a whole. A public health project manager will often work with a large interdisciplinary team in order to meet their goals and create the most effective public health projects.
On a day to day basis, a public health project manager may be found doing any of the following:
- Developing and implementing quality assurance procedures
- Delegating responsibilities to other members of the project staff
- Schedule and carry out conference calls with various clients or affiliates
- Crafting and meeting time schedules for goals of the project
- Creating project procedures in order to meet timeline or budget restraints
- Creating budgets for particular projects
- Budget monitoring during the course of a project
- Keeping documentation during all steps of completing a project
- Conducting project reviews and periodic update checks with various project staff members to ensure that the project is being completed on schedule and within budget restraints
- Various project organization tasks
The project manager of any public health project will be placed in charge of making sure a project is complete smoothly while meeting all requirements and restraints. This will often involve keeping documentation and staying on top of all project staff members to ensure goals are being efficiently met throughout the course of each project.
Education And Training
In order to become a public health project manager one will typically have to obtain a bachelor’s degree in public health or a related field. However, prospective public health project managers with a master’s degree are often preferred for employment.
In order to obtain a bachelor’s degree a person will need a high school diploma or a GED, and then go on to apply to a 4 year undergraduate program specializing in public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, psychology, sociology, or behavioral sciences. While a public health major is often preferred, other related majors are normally accepted as well. This undergraduate program will last a total of 4 years and focus on public health related topics as well as some management courses as well.
Once a bachelor’s degree is earned, a person can then choose to attend a master’s degree program in a public health related field as well. While a master’s degree in public health is not always required, it is recommended due to the competitiveness of this job market. A master’s degree program will typically consist of 2 years of study as well as an internship working in public health, and once earned a person may then decide to become certified in public health project management specifically. A project management or project management in public health certification course will last around 1 year and upon completion a person will then become certified in the specialized field of public health project management.
The average public health project manager can earn around $68,000 per year, however this number can get as high as $110,000 per year with the right level of experience in the field. The demand for these professionals is expected to rise to around 23% by the year 2022 with many vacancies opening for new qualified project managers.
