Undergraduate Career Choice in Governmental Public Health

The governmental public health workforce faces many challenges, including recruitment and retention issues, a lack of diversity, and few professionals with an academic background in public health. Encouraging undergraduates and recent graduates to pursue a career in governmental public health has been identified as a strategy to strengthen this workforce. This study explored the barriers and facilitators to pursuing a job in a federal, state, or local governmental public health agency for public health graduates. The researcher conducted interviews with 10 individuals who graduated between December 2012 and August 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health degree in Health Policy and Management from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. The most common barriers to entering governmental public health were a “tedious and difficult hiring process,” “difficulty obtaining a government job with only an undergraduate degree,” and a “lack of knowledge about governmental public health roles.” The most common facilitators were “government jobs were closely aligned with interests,” “internship/capstone/work project related to government,” and a “positive family/personal financial situation.” If the government wants highly qualified students to make a career choice in governmental public health, then they must make the hiring process less time-consuming, hidden, and slow. If UNC Gillings hopes to contribute to the governmental public health workforce, they should provide more support for individuals wishing to go into governmental public health.Bachelor of Science in Public Healt