If you want to go into healthcare, you have a lot of options for your major. But choosing which one can be overwhelming, especially when majors like healthcare administration and public health sound pretty similar. While both fields help improve healthcare, they do it in different ways.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the differences between the two majors and how to pick the one that’s right for you.
Core Focus
While healthcare administration and public health are both essential parts of healthcare, their biggest difference is their overall goals and focus.
For healthcare administration, this looks like managing the business and operations side of healthcare organizations. Choosing this major means learning how healthcare systems work and how to run them. While you’re in school, you’ll learn about:
- Finance and budgeting
- Staffing
- Compliance with laws
- Information management
- Daily operations
Public health is a much broader area that’s concerned with protecting and improving the health of populations and communities, rather than individual people. Majoring in public health means exploring the why behind health issues and designing solutions for whole communities. At school, you’ll learn about:
- Disease prevention
- Health education
- Policy Development
- Community wellness
Coursework
Both majors will have courses related to healthcare, like biology and anatomy. Beyond health, the two majors diverge, with healthcare administration focused on business and public health focused on helping communities.
At BYU-Idaho, students in the healthcare administration major take classes in:
Students in the public health major at BYU-Idaho take classes in:
Career Paths
Both healthcare administration and public health operate in the background. They’re not the doctors that help patients directly, but their roles are still essential to keeping people healthy. From directing services to coordinating community health plans, these fields are behind the scenes, helping patients in a way doctors can’t.
If you major in healthcare administration, you can work as a:
- Human Resources Specialist
- Operations Director
- Clinic Manager
- Health Information Manager
If you major in public health, you can find positions like:
- Community Health Worker
- Public Health Educator
- Epidemiology Assistant
- Health Promotion Specialist
At Work
As you step into your career, what you’ll see the most are your day-to-day projects and responsibilities. Both healthcare administration and public health work with other people, including doctors, executives, and sometimes even the government.
Typically, the work of healthcare administration looks like:
- Working in hospitals, nursing homes, or physician offices
- Improving the quality of care for patients
- Developing partnerships to solve problems in healthcare
- Organizing patient information and medical records
For public health, your work might consist of:
- Working in schools, government, or non-profit organizations
- Researching diseases and how to stop them from spreading
- Educating the community about health and wellness
- Planning and coordinating community wellness plans
Key Takeaways
Both majors offer in terms of education and career, but picking the best one comes down to what you want to do. Choosing can seem pretty daunting, so here’s a helpful breakdown of each major:
| | Healthcare Administration | Public Health |
| Core Focus |
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| Coursework |
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| Career Paths |
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| At Work |
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What Will You Choose?
Whether your passion is running a healthcare team or improving health for your community, these majors can offer you a path into your dream career. Healthcare administration is the business side of health, managing teams and information to help patients get better. Public health, on the other hand, works to make the whole community healthier through planning and education. Either way, these majors can help you make a real impact right where you live.
Citations
Excelsior University — Healthcare Administration vs. Public Health
Goodwin University — Public Health vs. Health Administration
BYU–Idaho Catalog — Course Information
BYU–Idaho Catalog — Course Information
BYU–Idaho Catalog — Course Information
BYU–Idaho Catalog — Course Information
BYU–Idaho Catalog — Course Information
BYU–Idaho Catalog — Course Information
BYU–Idaho Catalog — Course Information
BYU–Idaho Catalog — Course Information
American Public University — Public Health Bachelor’s Degree vs. Health Administration Bachelor’s Degree
Cambridge College of Healthcare & Technology — Healthcare Administration vs. Public Health
Goodwin University — Public Health vs. Health Administration