Public Health Careers: The Path Less Taken

A Q&A with Dr. Heather Krasna

Public Health Review is a podcast from our colleagues at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) that explores what health departments are doing to tackle the most pressing public health issues facing US states and territories. In their October 12 episode The Call to Join Public Health, they focussed on addressing the challenges currently facing the public health workforce. Robert Johnson of Public Health Review spoke with two educators who are leading the work on proposed responses to US governmental health departments seeking to rebuild the public health workforce at State, local, tribal, and territorial levels.

This podcast episode raised such important and interesting points that I requested permission to share highlights from these interviews with the audience of The Public Health Workforce is Not OK.  For the full episode, I highly recommend checking out Public Health Review where you can download and listen to the entire podcast and/or read the transcript. 

This week, I present the perspective of Dr. Heather Krasna, Associate Dean for Career and Professional Development at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York. I will share some highlights from her interview with Robert Johnson of Public Health Review. Please go to their website for the full version.

Photo: Dr. Heather Krasna

Q. If we had the money, would there be enough people ready to answer the call [to work in public health]?

A. “I think that there's a huge interest [in working in public health]. What I'm seeing is here, working at a university, in a school of public health, is that we had the largest graduating class of public health graduates in 100 years from our school. And it's not only Columbia, it's schools around the United States. Because what happened in fall of 2021, you know, two years before, is that we had a huge number of people who saw what happened in the pandemic and who wanted to make a difference. And they spent the last couple of years getting their public health degree here at Columbia. It's mostly their master's degree, but you know, in other places, there's a lot of bachelor's level graduates at that undergrad level who are really, really passionate about making their community healthier, keeping people safe, promoting really good, healthy opportunities, making public health the ideal option for people, making it available for people. And, you know, now they've graduated into a world where the funding is not where we thought it would be. Where suddenly, you know, some of the emergency funding is not there. And it's, you know, we're having some challenges. So, I think there's tremendous interest and now there's going to be a giant question of where are all these people going to get jobs, who really want to work in public health?

Dr. Krasna collaborated with ASTHO to develop the new Public Health Careers website www.publichealthcareers.org, which is intended to help agencies connect with candidates to fill openings. 

Q. Tell us… how does the website work?

A. “The first thing that it does I think that's groundbreaking, is that it actually has a map that you can click on. So if you are, you know, open to different locations, you can actually go to the site and find a map of all the State health departments and just click on them, and it brings you right to the job board for each state. And that might seem like really low hanging fruit, but it didn't exist before. So that's one really easy thing that it does to help people find opportunities.

It does have a job board, which you can also search by a whole bunch of different things—by geographic location, by the type of position, by keywords, buzzwords, things like that.

Then there's that educational piece, like what is public health? Why is public health something you should consider? There are fellowships and internships, I know we're going to be building that out a little bit more. And, you know, there's some sort of highlighted fellowships on there that you can explore. And, you know, again, that educational component, and we're building that out further also in terms of helping people understand, you know, what are the jobs that exist in public health? So, you'll see, just a quick overview, really, of, you know, what are the topic areas that health departments work on? And, you know, what are some of the actual job types? What kind of jobs could you get in a health department? So all of that stuff and putting it all in one place, I don't think it has ever been done before. So that's some of the benefits for a job seeker, is that it gives you a taste of what kind of jobs could exist and then it actually brings you to real job opportunities that you can apply to right now.”

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“We're hearing from health departments that this is bringing more candidates in, that people are clicking on the postings and then it brings them over to where they can apply for these different positions around the country. So hopefully, it draws people maybe that hadn't even thought about public health, it's kind of enticing them to consider it and then making it easy for them to apply for positions.”

✂️<snip>

Q. You give a lot of career advice, so I'd like to know what your advice is to the listeners. Whether they have a degree or not, if they're interested in public health, what do they need to know?

A. “You know, exploring what you want to do is a first step. Some of that is self-assessment. Thinking about what skills you really enjoy using, what skills maybe you don't enjoy using that you would love to not have to use those skills, maybe there's certain things that you can do but you find it boring or something. So, what skills do you like to use? What are you motivated to do? What achievements are you really proud of? And was there a sort of a pattern in terms of each time you were working on something you really enjoyed? You were using certain skills each time and those are the skills you want to use in the future? That's one piece.

Second piece is, are you passionate about a particular mission? Like I was saying, some people are motivated to work with kids and families, and some people are motivated for you know, health equity and others are specifically focused on environmental health or whatever. So, is there certain issues and topics that you're passionate about?

A third piece is kind of what kind of career setting are you interested in? You know, government is not for everybody. It is, it has a lot of really special benefits that don't exist in other sectors. Sometimes health departments may have, you know, certain kinds of benefits that other sectors don't always have. So, it's worth kind of thinking about that. But just figuring out lifestyle wise, you know, what is it that you're going to prioritize. And that first step of assessing and figuring out what's important to you, that's the groundwork you have to do.

And then, you have to go out and explore. And I would say, exploring could mean even just reading what's on that website, reading the book about 101+ Careers in Public Health. We profile many different public health professions in there, we have interviews of people in there. But also talking to people, reaching out to people over social media like LinkedIn. Or if there is a State Chapter of like APHA or a local health department, one of the State associations for public health. Those type of programs or organizations are ways that you can meet people and talk to them, and ask what they actually do. What is the day in the life really like? And then, you know, putting yourself out there can be hard, but applying for opportunities is really crucial to finding these positions.

I would also say, you know, sometimes with public health, health departments, depending on the health department, the job application process can look kind of different from what you might see in the private sector.”

Q. Clearly, you have a passion for this kind of work. But I'm wondering what it is that drives you to do all of this, was it the pandemic or something else?

A. For 25 years or more, really, I've been very lucky to have a career that I really enjoy, which is career counseling and coaching and helping students find employment. But I've also been a very mission-driven person, in addition to that.

Where I started out in nonprofit management and I was very lucky to eventually find a position as a Director of Career Services at a policy school, working with people, working in public administration, and nonprofit management. And then, ended up also moving into the Mailman School where I've been for the last 10 years, the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

And I just have to say that I'm passionate about this type of work of connecting people who want to make the world better, to job opportunities where they get to do that. It's just a privilege and an honor.

I would say the pandemic did sort of impact me pretty strongly, because it was at that time that I came to really realize living in New York City during the pandemic, that the backbone of public health is local and state, and tribal and territorial health departments. And when that backbone is not supported and funded properly, the rest of the public health infrastructure is not going to maintain itself very well.

We all in different ways contribute to public health. Public health is very diverse and very, very broad and it expands way beyond the core of that government public health. But if we don't have that core, then we're really in trouble.”

To hear this interview in full, please listen to the Public Health Review podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.  Find out more at https://www.astho.org/communications/podcast/ where you can subscribe, download this episode in full, and check out all their prior episodes too. Many thanks to ASTHO, Public Health Review, and interviewer Robert Johnson for permitting us to share highlights from their podcast.

Dr. Heather Krasna is a public health workforce researcher, higher education career services practitioner, career coach and author. She is co-author of 101+ Careers in Public Health, 3rd Edition, and author of Jobs That Matter: Find a Stable, Fulfilling Career in Public Service. She currently serves on several national and international committees, such as the de Beaumont Foundation's National Consortium for Public Health Workforce, ASPPH Framing the Future Task Force and Data Committee, and World Federation of Public Health Associations Education & Training Working Group. She provides training to health departments on strategic hiring approaches and recruitment marketing. Her research focuses on employment outcomes of public health graduates, labor market competition for graduates, and the governmental public health workforce. As Associate Dean of Career and Professional Development at Columbia Mailman, she leads efforts to ensure positive post-graduate outcomes for Mailman students. She has more than 24 years' experience in providing individual career advising to students and professionals from backgrounds including elected officials, university faculty and staff, senior researchers, nonprofit and government executives, career changers, and others.

Join us to continue the conversation in Notes or Chat or Comments or Threads:

• Dr. Krasna describes the largest graduating class in public health in 100 years graduating into “a world where the funding is not where we thought it would be.” Are you a member of this class? Does this observation resonate with your experience? What can we do in response?

• Dr. Krasna observes that applying for a job in public health can look “different from what you might see in the private sector.” What kinds of differences have you experienced?