Should You Get a Public Health Degree Right Now? (The Honest Answer) | The Dr. Des Show

Join The Public Health Club: publichealthclub.com

With federal layoffs, dismantled programs, and a rapidly shifting funding landscape, a lot of public health professionals are asking the same question: is a public health degree still worth it? In this solo episode, Dr. Des gives a direct, no-fluff answer — and it's more nuanced than a simple yes or no. She breaks down what's actually happening with public health funding right now (hint: it's being redirected, not eliminated), how to decide whether a master's or doctorate is the right move for your specific goals, the real difference between a DrPH and a PhD, why experience beats credentials in most career paths, and how to translate your public health skills into adjacent industries that are hiring right now. If you're thinking about entering the field, going back for a doctorate, or just trying to figure out your next move — this one is for you.

In This Episode, You'll Learn

1. Why Dr. Des still says yes to a public health degree — even in this climate — and the conditions that make it the right call
2. How to follow the money in public health funding so you can position yourself before everyone else catches up
3. The one question you must answer before choosing any degree program: master's, DrPH, or PhD
4. The real difference between a DrPH and a PhD — and why either degree can take you where you want to go
5. Why a doctoral degree without field experience won't get you the leadership jobs you're aiming for
6. How to translate your public health skills into healthcare, biopharma, and population health roles that pay more
7. Dr. Des's funding advice for PhD programs: the rule she repeats until she's "blue in the face"

Resources Mentioned

1. The Public Health Club — publichealthclub.com (7-day free trial; 100+ on-demand workshops, mentorship sessions, career coach office hours, weekly RFP opportunities)
2. Public Health Pivot Course — inside The Public Health Club; teaches you how to translate PH skills into healthcare, biopharma, and adjacent industries
3. Building Your Resume with AI Workshop — inside The Public Health Club; includes a custom GPT for resume building
4. DrPH vs. PhD Workshops — two full workshops on demand inside the PHC featuring DrPH and PhD holders from multiple universities
5. Subcontracting to Six Figures — Dr. Des's consulting course covering how to follow the money, find contracts, and land your first client; join the waitlist at the link below

About The Dr. Des Show

The Dr. Des Show is the go-to podcast for public health career development, consulting, and entrepreneurship. Hosted by Dr. Desiree "Dr. Des" Strickland — DrPH, public health CEO, and founder of The Public Health Club.

Connect with Dr. Des:

1. Join The Public Health Club: publichealthclub.com
2. Instagram: @DesireeCourtneyJ | @the_publichealthclub
3. LinkedIn: Dr. Desiree Strickland | The Public Health Club

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https://www.publichealthclub.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back to the Dr. Des Show. I'm sitting a little comfortably today. I got my coffee because I want to give y'all some real talk today. Today we are talking about should you get a public health degree? Now, if you already have a master's, this we maybe we will get into talking about should you get a doctorate, right? Should you go that step further? But if you don't have a master's, a bachelor's, are you just thinking about public health, we're covering that too because it's a lot that is happening in the world, right? And a lot of us we get discouraged and we're like, ah, Dr. Des, is it worth it? Is it even worth it to get a public health degree right now? And we're talking about that today. So before we get started, y'all know what to do. Like this episode, subscribe to this channel. If you are on YouTube, hey friend. If you are watching on Apple Podcasts or listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening, make sure that you subscribe. Um, when you subscribe and even like leave us a comment, right? That helps other people to find the podcast. We want to share this knowledge, okay? We don't gatekeeping public health. That is not what we do. All right. Comment on this podcast. Let me know you're listening, you're feeling me, you're liking the content. Tell me what you want to see, okay? But yes, let's go ahead and we're gonna dive in. I'm gonna take a take a sip of my coffee because we about to go in, okay? All right, y'all. So now, public health professionals. Should you get a degree in public health right now? There's no short answer, long answer. So we're just gonna break down what's going on right now in our field. There's been so much that has happened. Jobs have been dismantled, organizations and just so much has been broken apart, right? Um, people have been riffed, right? Um, the reduction in force is the riff, if you've never heard of that, but people use that term rift. Um, there are so many people who have been let go from the federal government, from just so many different places. And it's really a crazy job market right now. But one thing I will say is that I have been trained, and one thing I train people to do in when we do like our subcontract and the six figures course for uh public health professionals, we talk about following the money and knowing where the money is going. And I think that's always a big thing, and that's not something we're taught in school. I'm always thinking about all right, where are the dollars going? And where the dollars are going, that's where I probably should be investing my time, right? Because it's not just gonna be like, oh, money's going here one day and then the next day it's not. There's always gonna be something that preempts that, right? You're always gonna get some signals to see, like, this might be happening. And even with what happened when, you know, our current president got in office, we did a um a workshop in the club uh before the election to talk about what's going to happen if this president, this person gets in office versus this person, if Donald Trump gets in office versus Kamala Harris, right? We had a whole workshop talking about that, and we had an expert come. Um, we had experts come to talk about that. Now, having that was so eye-opening for me because that taught me, all right, if this person gets elected, here's what's gonna happen. If this person gets elected, here's what's gonna happen. They said their plans, right? Donald Trump got elected, and now we see what has happened. It was everything and more that um was predicted on that workshop, right? Now, since we knew this, we could have planned for it. Now, we granted we did not know like everybody was gonna get let go. We didn't know the timeline, we didn't know, but we had thoughts on how this would go. And I think that that's that's the major thing, like is knowing where the money is going and how to prepare. Now, Donald Trump has put billions of dollars into rural health, right? States are now trying to figure out how do we spend these funds, they are putting out RFPs, they are putting out all the things to give out millions of dollars in funding for people to do this work, they are hiring teams. We just had a lot of people in the club post like, hey, we got job openness, we got job openness, trying to fill roles because they got all of this money now in rural health and they gotta spend it, they gotta get it out. They need the people to work, right? Let's look at the next logical step in that for me would be to say, okay, I didn't get a job with the state government who has the money. Let me see who they are going to lock in for these um contracts. Let me see who's applying, who's bidding. Let me even go to some of these bidding workshops to see who's gonna, who, who, what organizations are there. I ain't trying to bid, but let me see what organizations are there so I can know once this gets awarded, I can follow the timeline, and all of that is public information who gets awarded what contract with state government, right? Taxpayer dollars is being used, so that is public information. So we'll be able to find it out. And now we know, oh, this organization just got two million from state government to do XYZ. Let me go ahead and hit them up. Let me reach out on LinkedIn, let me drop by, let me um see what they got going on. Don't just wait till the job is posted because now they're probably trying to scramble to like hire. Let's follow the money, okay? That is what I'm trying to do because if I'm working in an entrepreneurship space, which I am, I'm trying to see, okay, where's the money going, especially as a consultant with a consulting business? Where's the money going? How can I pivot? How can I make sure that I'm in alignment when this comes out? Okay. So that's the first thing to think about. There is money and funding out there in public health. It's just being redirected to different things, right? So let's find out, hey, what's what's um the White House's plan for public health, right? For health in general. What are their priority areas? Let's look at that because they have priority areas that are posted that are out there, and that's what they're working on. So, how do we fall into their priority areas to still do great work, to still do the work that we are trained to do, but maybe it just looks a little bit different, right? So that's that's the first thing I wanted to make sure that I drove in with you all is that money is still out there, money is still flowing, funding is still happening, it just looks different. And we have to think about how that looks and how that is going to affect us in this space. So when people ask me, Dr. Des, should I even go into public health? My answer is yes. Because one of the things that we have seen time and time again is that when you take away public health things, when you take away public health programs and funding and all these different things, a lot of times what is going to happen is stuff starts breaking. And it takes a little while for you to notice it's broken, but then it grows and it gets bigger. And then you know what happens? It gets so big to the point where now they have no choice but to throw all this money at it to try and fix it. And they want it fixed fast, which is annoying, right? Because, you know, we as a country are very reactive instead of, you know, yeah, we're very reactive. We know this, right? Uh, but that is something that we know. If we know more, we can play it to our advantage to know, hey, these programs are the ones that got dismantled, these programs are are are gone right now. But let's track health indicators, let's track all of these different things. What is the data telling us? And let's see, maybe in the next year or two, something is gonna get bad, right? A pandemic may happen, God forbid, but you know, a pandemic may happen. And we need to be able to be on the forefront of that with our skills. But if you're tracking this and you are aware of this, then you know this, right? So that that is the thing. As public health professionals, we are taught to identify gaps, identify disparities, right? Let's analyze that when it comes to funding, when it comes to um priorities in our government, when it comes to all the things that we're doing, okay? So the answer to that simple question of Dr. Des, is there money in public health still? The answer is yes, there is money. It just looks different and we got to know where to find it. All right. So now, people asking about degrees, masters of public health, doctors of public health, PhDs. My answer to you is should you get one? It depends. I need you to go into whatever program you're going into, knowing why do you want to go into this program? What's the point of you going into this program, right? Why? Because if you go into this program and you're just like, oh, I just like public health, it looks cool. It's that's great. You can do it, but I need you to eventually get a plan, all right? Before you decide on any program, master's, doctorate, PhD, whatever, I need you to write down your why. Why do you want to go into this program? What do you want to do with it, right? How much money do you want to make? Well, a lot of times, you know, we get in these impact spaces where we are making an impact and we are doing like work that, you know, that feels good, that makes us feel good, that is making a difference. A lot of times we forget about money. One thing in the public health club, we talk about money. How much is job paying? Like, is it is it in alignment with the scope of the duties that they want you to do? Because a lot of times we know it's not. Is this, even if it's not, is it going to help us get to the next level? What does that look like, right? Those are questions we have to think about. So, for instance, if you are saying, all right, Dr. Dez, I really want to, you know, do something in maternal health. Like, you know, the the black maternal um death rate is alarming, it's crazy. I want to help fight that. Okay, how? What do you what exactly do you want to do to help fight that, right? Those are the questions that they don't ask you in school, that they need to start asking you, right? Is it you're gonna work on the policy side and you're gonna try to implement policies and and do political change, all of that stuff, right? Are you doing that? Or are you doing health communications and you're designing like graphics and you know, communications programs and and all of these campaigns and stuff like that to get the word out there, right? Are you doing that? Are you building programs, right? Are you building programs in communities for black mothers, right? Are you doing that? Are you gonna be analyzing the data and pushing out data reports to analyze these gaps and get the data in front of Congress, in front of all of these? What exactly do you want to do in public health? And then once you decide on what exactly it is you want to do, then you can figure out a path forward, right? Because it may not always be an MPH is the best degree to get. Maybe. I don't know. It just depends. You have other options because one thing I love learned about public health is that it is so public health is literally everywhere, okay? Like in so many different industries and jobs. And it's so many people who don't have public health degrees but are doing public health work. It's crazy, right? I used to work for a health insurance company. Um, I was their manager for health equity. And one of the things that I noticed just working within the company, they have a whole population health um team, which I was like, oh, this is really cool. This is what we do in public health. But I was like, hmm, they call it population health. What is the difference here, right? And what I quickly learned was that population health just means health within their population, right? Their area, right? So since it was a health insurance organization, it's population health. The population is their members, right? So how are we driving better health outcomes for our members of the health plan? They're designing programs, they're doing quality improvement, which is program management, program design. They're doing quality improvement initiatives and programs. They have data analysts doing this stuff. But one thing I noticed, most of the people who are working in those departments, they have master's in health administration backgrounds or they have MBAs. I said, hmm, this is what's going on. And then when you think about it, the people that they are hiring, because the hiring people have MBAs, MHAs, whatever, that's who they're looking for to hire. It's their own bias, like, and it's it's nothing to them, but you know what you know and you know what's worked in their field so far, right? You have to sell yourself. You have to sell that story, you have to speak their language, right? Their language is a little bit different from ours, right? Like I just told you, quality improvement, that literally is program design. But if we say program management on our resume, guess what? They're gonna say you don't have any quality improvement skills. Okay, those are little nuanced things that if you don't know, no one, if no one tells you, right? But those are things we talk about all the time in the public health club. We have all of these workshops on demand. We have over a hundred workshops on demand inside the public health club waiting for you to take right now to teach you these things, right? We have the public health pivot course. So if you are trying to pivot your public health skills to a different industry, let's say you're trying to go into the biopharma area because we know they pay money, right? So if we're trying to do that, what are some job titles that you can look for? And then not only that, because if you apply to that job with your same public health resume, guess what? You're gonna get rejected. But that course inside the public health club teaches you how to translate your skills into their industry, into their job, tells you all the keywords, all the things that you need to do to translate. And guess what? We have a building your resume with AI workshop in there to teach you. I give you a custom GPT to build your resume. Everything is there for you. The point is you got to take it though. I can't force it down your throat, okay? You gotta take it. But the resources are there. So if you're saying, Dr. Des, I want to get a public health degree, I'm thinking about it, but I'm just not sure because of the climate. Number one, figure out what you want to do. And what you want to do will change. It can change. What you want to do in public health can and will change, all right? I've been a policy, I've been a um, I've been in health policy, I've been a program manager, I've been a project manager, I've been a manager for health equity, managing health equity accreditation. I've been so many things because we can do so many things and wear so many hats with public health and with our degrees, okay? So don't fear that you choosing this one thing is going to box you in, but you choosing this one thing is gonna give you a plan and a path forward, all right? So now for my people that want to get doctorates, first decision you gotta make, am I getting a DRPH or a PhD, right? Or am I just like, you know, getting a doctorate in something else that is not even public health, right? There have been so many people, like my friend Dr. Kristen Holmes. She has a PhD um in, what is her PhD? I think it's in public affairs. I might be wrong now. But it's it's in one of those areas that's not public health, but she's worked in public health, right? And she worked in so many different things. And her skills translate so well. So she's been able to do so much. Like she now works for city government in Orlando. Um and she does like revitalized revitalization of like downtown Orlando type projects, right? Crazy. But she also has a public health like consulting company where she does strategic planning for public health organizations. She has worked as contract as a contractor for CDC, she has worked at the Department of Health, like she has done all those things. But you see how your career path can change and can pivot and can do all the things. You just gotta know it's possible. And they don't teach you in school what's possible in public health, but we do that in the public health club. So go ahead and join. But you know, I say that to say DRPH versus PhD, we gotta decide which one we want to do first. Yes, it is true. DRPH is more practical. I have a DRPH, it is more practical application of public health. So if you want to actually work in the field, you want to do all the things in the field and public health. Yes, that is the degree that many people typically go to. And if you want like leadership in the field, right? Like you want to be a leader at a um department of health, at an organization, whatever. A lot of people get DRPHs, okay? Now, PhDs is more research based. But honestly, y'all, you can do every single thing you want to do with either degree, okay? Either degree. The only thing different is the requirements, right? If people say, Oh, I want a PhD because I want to do research, you do research with a P with a DRPH. I had to do a whole dissertation. I did focus groups, I did um survey design, I did quantitative data analysis, I did all of the things. I put together a full dissertation in my DRPH program, okay? I'm an adjunct professor. So there are so many friends who I have that are full-time professors that have a DRPH. You can do it. And same with a PhD. If you want to work in a field with a PhD, you can do that too. You want to go into leadership. So don't look at that, right? Look at the length of the program. Look at the professors in the program, right? Because that those professors are gonna tell you a lot about how you can, you know, what type of research you're gonna be able to do, right? Think look at some professors whose skills and interests align with yours, okay? Those are things I want you all to look at. And then inside the public health club, we have two full workshops doing a breakdown of DRPH versus PhD. From each workshop, we had two people who had PhDs, two people who had DRPHs on there, talking about the differences, talking about the things that they learned from their different universities and all of that, right? Talking about funding and what that looks like. So, y'all, like the resources are there, okay? I can't go into everything in the podcast video, but publichealthclub.com, all of the resources, the workshops are there, the people are there for you to ask these questions too, right? We do mentorship in the club. Ask questions, come to mentorship, do the things, okay? Um now I hope that that really helped you. And I know a lot of people ask about funding. DRPH is typically not funded. Um, my DRPH was fully funded. Um, I went to FamU for my DRPH. It was in person. A lot of people ask that question. Um, in-person classes. I did work full-time though. I got the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship. Now, one of the things I just learned about the Magnite Doctoral Fellowship is that um government things are people are no look, they're no longer funding it really. So now they're trying to raise money, right? I'm definitely going to donate. Um, but they need more donations to continue going with that, right? Uh, but you know, programs like that, it's it's a lot happening. Uh, but PhDs, if you are going to get a PhD, do not do a PhD unless it's fully funded, okay? Do not do a PhD unless it's fully funded. I will tell you that over and over again until I'm blue in the face, okay? So many ways to get a PhD fully funded. Um, do TA, like be a TA, um, teacher's assistant, like all of these ways to get your PhD fully funded, do it. They fund them, okay? Um, some for some people, if you're part-time, it may not be as feasible, but that's why you talk with these schools that you're applying to. Because you talking with that school is gonna take precedence over anything that I tell you here, because their advisors, their people in their departments are gonna be able to tell you specifics about that school, about their organization, about what funding looks like, what funding is available to you, and you apply to all of that funding, okay? Apply, use AI to help you apply to funding, right? Do it, but just do it and get it out there and keep going, okay? Now, if you really want to do it, now, oh, one thing I wanted to mention to y'all too. If you are thinking, okay, I have a master's, I have experience, I have all of this, do I need a doctorate of public health to get further? I would say no, you don't, depending on where you want to go. Now, in CDC, you might need a doctorate to really get on those higher levels a little bit faster, right? But if you are just in like general organizations, you technically don't really need a doctorate. Um, you need more experience. You need to expose yourself and get the experience. Because one thing I have seen over and over again is that people will graduate with doctoral degrees and have no experience in the field that they're trying to get a job in. And they think that that degree is going to help get them the job, and it does not. They want people with experience. That is one of the major reasons why all throughout my master's, all throughout my doctorate, I worked full-time. Yes, it was hard, but no, I did not have kids. I did not have a husband at that time. So that made it a little bit easier, right? For me. But if you have kids, if you have a husband, you have whatever, you have a wife, whatever, you have all of these other things going on in your life, you're a caretaker for your parents, it can be a little challenging. It can be hard. Get a part-time job, get an internship, right? Start consulting. But whatever it is, you need experience in this field, okay? You need the experience to be able to get you those jobs on the leadership level. And I'll say that again until I'm blue in the face. Like you need the experience, okay? So don't negate experience. Really think about how I can build things out for myself. Join the public health club, access those workshops I was talking about if you want to go deeper. Because in all those workshops, it's literally like you getting a mentorship session. You're getting a masterclass in how to do something. And it's invaluable. Like it's it's so valuable to you to have that. So, all right, y'all. I didn't talk to y'all, I didn't give y'all strategies. I hope y'all took notes. Um, but I get that question all the time. And I figure, you know, maybe it's time to do another podcast episode on um degrees and should you even go into public health right now, right? Hopefully, this helped y'all. Uh, I hope to see y'all in the public health club during our mentorship session. By now, we we have um new career coaches um and they're doing office hours, so they do career and consulting coaching. Um, they have office hours inside the club. So come to their office hours. I do mentorship inside the club. Come to a mentorship session. You have the help. It's up to you to get it. All right. Publichealthclub.com. I'll see y'all in there. Make sure you subscribe to this channel and share this video with a friend. Stop keeping all the knowledge and stuff to yourself. Share it, put it in. in the group chat put it in your group me whatever it is but y'all I'll see y'all on the next episode