Public health careers

Public health is a hugely diverse and rewarding career field, and there’s increasing demand globally for people with relevant expertise and skills. There’s a niche in public health for a wide range of interests and talents, whether you like working on numbers or computers, or you prefer to come face-to-face with communities, or work with senior stakeholders to set global health agendas.

What is public health?

Click here to find out what public health actually is, how it differs from clinical medicine and healthcare, and the benefits it brings to society.

Career profiles

Delve into the career stories of 40+ of our graduates, including some with over ten year’s workforce experience since leaving us, and envision your future.

Public Health Insiders

Our podcast captures career path stories and hard-won learnings from people working in a variety of public health roles.

Careers expo

Watch our 2024 Postgraduate Careers online expo, where former students share how their Monash public health qualifications have helped them succeed in the job market.

Fields of work

The WHO defines health promotion as the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. It moves beyond a focus on individual behaviour to consider a wide range of social, cultural, commercial and environmental determinants of health. This type of work could see you designing, delivering or evaluating health programs; advising councils, health services or employers on health initiatives and policy; or conducting research.
This is a broad category covering a wide range of study designs and methods. Being a researcher could see you leading or contributing to qualitative projects (surveys, interviews etc), quantitative studies (clinical trials, cohort studies etc), or mixed methods approaches.
Pretty much every type of employer that is relevant to public health will need people with research skills: government, private industry, public health services, policy think tanks, councils, and more.
Academic research (performing research in a Medical Research Institute (MRI) or a University) is one that many students envision when they think of research careers. In Australia, academic research has two main pathways. In the first, you aim to climb the ladder as an academic, by publishing impactful research papers, securing your own funding through grants, and growing your own research team around you. Funding is highly competitive, and many people find seeking funding stressful and frustrating, but it also allows you to set your own research agenda, and build a significant reputation as a research leader. The second track is project-based, where you lead or join projects where funding has already been secured, moving on to another as each is completed. In this scenario, you take on short- to medium-term contracts, and fulfil research activities required by the project, from small casual roles, right through to full-time project management. This can be in academic settings, or for private companies.
See clinical trials below for more detail on working in that field of research.
Health policy guides how, when, where and to whom healthcare and prevention strategies are delivered. Policy creation is usually a collaborative process, so strong stakeholder management skills are desirable, along with a good ability to search for and critique medical literature, to write well, and good working knowledge of health and the health system. Similar skills are needed for those working in clinical guideline development. A wide range of employers need people with policy nous, from governments to big business, health service providers, academic institutes and more.
An important sub-section of research, with particularly good employment options. Clinical trials account for a huge component of research globally, and allow for rigorous testing of new treatments, medical devices, and prevention strategies. There’s plenty of work in this field, both in private industry (like pharma companies and contract research organisations) and in academic institutions (universities and medical research institutes).
You can combine your public health knowledge with communications skills in a variety of roles with research projects, health services, research institutes, governments, private industry, or even communications agencies specialising in healthcare. Health communicators ensure the most important health messages are communicated effectively across media, web, social media, publications, videos and more.
Biostatisticians are a highly sought-after commodity with plenty of well-paid job opportunities across research, industry and government. You need to be great with numbers, but also be able to communicate complex statistical concepts to those less numerate than you. You could find yourself advising on research projects, designing new methodologies, cleaning and analysing data, and more. Job opportunities in this field really open up with higher degrees.
From assessing workplace safety compliance or worker injuries, advising on how to prolong the good health of workers, through to investigating the health impacts of environmental contaminants on exposed communities, this is a diverse field with plenty of job options. The impacts of climate change, air pollution and urbanisation on health is a growing concern for health providers and policy-makers. You’ll find work in health services, governments, academic settings, and private industry.
This is an exciting and booming employment field that applies analytical and biostatistical techniques with cutting-edge machine learning to solve problems in healthcare provision. With a wide variety of applications from large healthcare data set analysis to wearable tech and health apps, it’s perfect for people interested in using data and technology to improve patient care, health research, and driving time- and cost-efficiencies in healthcare.
Passing on your skills and knowledge to others is the most sustainable way to build understanding of health concepts and ensure the future of public health. Learn how you can combine your knowledge with basic teaching qualifications.
Understanding the cost-efficiency of health and healthcare is vital for leaders to make the best decisions about spending constrained health budgets. Health economists can work in academia performing their own research or consulting on others’, and there’s a big place for them in private industry, large healthcare providers, and government.
It’s not just about solving cold cases. Forensic medicine has a strong emphasis on using coronial or hospital data to learn lessons about death and injury that can help the living stay safe and healthy. It informs illicit drug policy, domestic violence and child abuse prevention and identification, victim identification after natural disasters, and providing medical evidence in court. Employment options tend to be with statutory authorities, governments, academic settings, police forces or judicial systems.
This is a broad field with the aim of driving health equity globally. It can stretch from conducting research, to helping deliver medical aid in conflict zones, to blending public health knowledge with diplomacy skills and business acumen to set global or regional health agendas and policies.
Closely aligned to global health in mission and values, this field aims to improve health equity specifically for Indigenous peoples around the world. It requires a combination of public health knowledge – particularly around determinants of health - along with a strong understanding of cultural context, in order to deliver effective health and wellbeing services and messages in a way that is culturally safe, and accessible to target populations.

Employer types

Groups promoting awareness of disease states and advocating for those with disease will sometimes have entry-level roles in research, health promotion or communication. National groups tend to have more funding, and therefore more plentiful opportunities.
Examples: Cancer Council Australia, Kidney Health Australia, Heart Foundation.
University medical faculties are often a hub of public health research and education, as are as independent medical research institutes with a strong focus on global and public health. Health policy think tanks need people with research skills to inform their positions.
Examples: Monash SPHPM, Burnet Institute, Baker Institute, Grattan Institute.
Local councils, state governments, and the Commonwealth government all employ public health professionals. Many policy-based roles are heavily research based – involving literature reviews, consultation and writing – whilst others are more hands-on, such as implementing community-based health initiatives, or managing communications. Australian Federal and State health departments are a big employer, through their health departments. At a Federal level, most Department of Health jobs are Canberra-based, but interstate opportunities do arise. Some local councils prioritise public health in their strategic plans, and engage in local health promotion programs.
These are planning and management agencies that often run in parallel to state health departments. There may be significant cross-over between their roles and traditional public health roles, especially around policy, communications, and program delivery and evaluation.
Examples: WorkSafe, VicRoads, VicHealth, Environmental Protection Agency, Cancer Australia
Government affiliated groups and agencies may require people with public health knowledge for data analysis and program management.
Examples: Primary Healthcare Networks, Medicare.
Pharmaceutical companies, Contract Research Organisations (CROs), Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisations (CDMOs), health tech companies and private health insurersmay need people with public health knowledge to inform communications, data analysis, research projects and health promotion programs.
Examples: GSK, Telstra Health, Medibank, BUPA.
Both public and private health service providers will have roles suitable for new graduates, potentially in research and communications. These can range from hospitals through to private GP networks, aged care services, and clinics and outreach programs for indigenous communities.
Examples: Alfred Health, Ramsay Healthcare, Healthscope, Bolton Clarke, Monash Health, St John’s Ambulance.
Field work in conflict or resource poor areas is highly competitive, but NGOs may have local job openings that can get your foot in the door in planning or other roles.
Examples: Medecins san Frontieres, International Red Cross/Crescent
Regional or global health groups need people with public health research and clinical knowledge, who can combine it with strong communications, diplomacy, and business skills to forge partnerships and contribute to regional or global health agenda setting.
Examples: WHO, AusAID, United Nations, World Health Summit

Level of study and workforce opportunities

A Bachelor’s degree is an opportunity to dabble in different areas of study that intrigue you, to confirm what you are and aren’t interested in. As a result, many Bachelor degrees are quite general in nature. Even those offering placement opportunities are still relatively broad, and focus on theory over practice. The value of a Bachelor’s qualification is not just the specific content you learn, it’s the way they train you to think, and the job-readiness skills you pick up along the way (time management, team work…).
Entering the workforce at this level gives you great flexibility in the field of job you can get, and with many different employers. But the roles you get will be fairly low in level – you’ll be following tightly prescribed instructions, not setting any ambitious agendas of your own. Many people who enter the workforce with a Bachelor’s degree work for a few years, then return to postgraduate study to formally embed higher-level theory around their on-the-job learnings, and move into senior roles.
This is a fantastic year-long add on to a Bachelor degree where you’ll immerse yourself in a research project. Honours projects can cover the full range of research methodologies. You could manage a small project from the planning phase right through to publication, or take on a small part of a much larger ongoing study. Whatever you do, you’ll be doing it in a heavily supported environment, where it’s understood you need guidance and training.
Having this on your CV will set you apart from Bachelor-level job candidates, because employers can see you’ve demonstrated the ability to run a small project yourself. They also know you’ll have deeper experience in crucial job-readiness skills like project management, communications, critical and reflective thinking, and much more. Depending on your project, you could leave with a publication under your belt.
It also gives you a strong understanding of the research process, and opens up great networking opportunities that could help you find employment. For those students seriously considering a future in research, Honours is great pathway through to PhD. But it’s also a brilliant opportunity for anyone with an interest in how the evidence base of medicine is created.
These postgraduate qualifications form a stepped pathway to deepen your knowledge and practice in a specific area, or help you shift your career along a different pathway. They are a great way to return to study for those with workforce experience, and provide the ability to take one step at a time.
Professional Certificates require just two Units to be completed, minimising time requirements and allowing you to get a foot in the door.
Certificates and Diplomas are the next steps up. They are useful for people wishing to test the waters before committing to a Masters, or where time or cost is an issue. Many of these shorter courses articulate into longer courses through a credit system (micro-credentialling), meaning you can start small and work up.
Masters is the longest and most intensive of the three, often taking a year or two to complete full time. They can be purely by coursework, or may involve significant workplace placements or have a thesis component - a research project that you manage from start to finish, exposing you to the entire research pathway, and opening the door to publication.
Completing a Masters in particular is a great way to climb the ladder into more senior roles.
These are the crème-de-la-crème of the research-study ladder, and are often a daunting but rewarding undertaking. Once you’ve agreed on your supervisors and project, you are left to manage your project under the arm’s length tutelage of your mentoring team. You have much more responsibility than in an Honours or Masters position.
There really isn’t any job-readiness skill a PhD won’t give you. You’ll be exposed to time, project and budget management; stakeholder and communication skills; research skills; teamwork and solo working; agility and dealing with uncertainty – you name it, you’ll do it.
A PhD can give you incredible specialisation, making you an expert in a niche field. It can be a launchpad to academia and building your own research team, or you might find yourself snapped up at a more senior level in government or industry, where you advise on policy, help set organisational agendas, or take the lead on projects. You could take on research management roles in research institutes, Universities or policy think tanks.
It’s also not for the faint-hearted. It can be long and hard. You might end up with surprising results that mean you have to pivot your project partway through. You may need to adapt to unexpected changes to life plans during the three years. But at the end, there’s a well-deserved celebration, and a world of opportunity waiting.

Tips and tricks to getting your dream job in public health

Here is our top advice for students about to enter the workforce, from our career profile candidates, and summarised for your snacking pleasure:

Consider volunteering. Being able to walk into job interviews with some real-world experience, even just a little, makes a huge difference. It tells them you’re committed and driven, provides proof you can work well with other people, and gives you something ‘real’ to talk about with interviewers, which boosts your confidence. Think outside the box too – experience in a community or sporting group can be just as valid as volunteering at a traditional public health institute.
Don’t expect to walk into a full-time, permanent role straight away. If you walk into a full-time dream job straight away, you’re very lucky. Many entry-level jobs are tied to a particular project or funding source. The upside of this is that there are always new and different roles and jobs popping up, which provides opportunities to diversify and learn new skills.
Your pathway may involve juggling a couple of part-time or casual jobs, which will enrich your skills and experience. Eventually something will give – either a small job will expand, or your growing reputation and network means you get offered a full-time job, or you’ll just develop a rich enough CV to a secure a full-time job through applying via a job ad.
Network like your life depends on it. University is a moment in time where you have incredible access to health leaders, who are your lecturers, tutors and supervisors. Make the most of it. Don’t be afraid to send them an email, invite them for a coffee and just ask about their work and what opportunities they might have for you, or introductions to others. Public health is a close professional community, so always have your best foot forward.
Be adaptable. One day you could be in a workshop with Department of Health staff, the next day you could be running a focus group with community members who seem like they hate the government with every bone in their body! Learn to consider and appreciate people’s backgrounds and skillsets.
Be curious. Learn to say yes! You don’t need to know what you want to do when you graduate, you just need to be open to trying new things, tackling new challenges and taking on different and unusual responsibilities. You never know what opportunities they may open up.
Be strategic. Don’t wait for opportunities to arise, create them. Identify the movers and shakers in the field you want to go into, and make first contact with them. Go to orations and talks where you know they’ll be presenting and wait around to chat to them. Ask mentors, colleagues or friends for introductions to people who can help get you where you want to be. Volunteer or join clubs or societies where you know your path will cross with those of important people.
You don’t need to ‘follow your passion’ to enjoy your job. Some people will tell you to do this. The reality is that most passions simmer and develop over time, they are a process of discovery. Many people don’t figure out what they are passionate about until they’re in their thirties or older! Working with friendly and interesting people, in a supportive environment where you are constantly learning can be incredibly rewarding and fun, regardless of whether the topic you are working on is your passion.
Remember an interview is also for you. Just as an employer doesn’t know if you’re the right person for the job, you don’t know if the job is the right fit for you. If you get invited to interview, plan some questions in advance and make sure you ask them. The same applies when you are considering a PhD supervisor – it’s a two way relationship.

Public Health and Preventive Medicine

Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences