Marshall University is now offering a new public health certificate program.

Monika Sawhney, program director for the Marshall University public heath program, said she believes the certificate program will be a great asset to the community and can help keep jobs local.

“What we are primarily doing with the certificate program is that many people join the health workforce, either in the health department or in a hospital or any health entity, but they don’t have updated healthcare credentials,” Sawhney said. “This is a certificate program they can take one course at a time or two courses at a time. The unique thing is you can take these courses online or you can take it face to face as well.”

There are five courses required to receive the certificate; introduction to public heath, global health, epidemiology and electives such as maternal and child health, community health and infectious diseases.

Sawhney said the certificate was created in order to update all community health care workers on public health knowledge and to allow for new students and non-traditional students to get a taste of what it’s like to be back in school.

The credits can be easily transferred to other health related majors as well as serve as an introduction to the public heath bachelor degree program.

The new program will not only help individuals looking to move up within their companies, it could also help health care related jobs stay in the state.

“I think it will heavily benefit the community because many people either get stuck in the job that they are in and they don’t get time to go full-time to school; this way they can use the credentials to move up the ladder,” Sawhney said.

The public health certificate program is currently focused on general public health and depending on the success of the program, more specific certificates could be made available.

The undergraduate public health program is the only program of its kind in the state making the new program unique to Marshall.

The program will be available for the spring 2016 semester. The application deadline is Dec. 1.

Kelsie Lively can be contacted at [email protected].