MA/MPH: Bioethics and Public Health

The goal of the Master of Arts (MA) in Bioethics and Master of Public Health (MPH) program is to train a select group of students in the intersection of public health and bioethics.

  • First year is spent at Rollins
  • Second year is spent at Laney Graduate School

Students who graduate with a dual MA in Bioethics/MPH degree will be well qualified to help set priorities for pandemics or other allocations of scarce resources; to set public policy on access to health care; or to conduct education on the ethical foundations of public health practice.

Students must apply to and be accepted into each school separately in order to be eligible for a dual degree.

All applications to Rollins are completed in SOPHAS – The Centralized Application Service for Public Health

For instructions on applying to Laney Graduate School, click here.

For instructions on applying to Rollins, click here.

This dual degree program prepares students to speak to both the individual and community interests in health care in order for them to be better prepared to enter the contemporary health care field. Students who graduate with a dual MA in bioethics/MPH degree will be well qualified to work in public health to help set priorities for pandemics or other allocations of scarce resources, to set public policy for health departments or states on access to health care, or to conduct education on the ethical foundations of public health practice.

Students will be exposed to a rigorous framework for ethical decision-making that they can incorporate into their projects in public health. Such attention to the ethical impact of proposed public health initiatives will add significant value to the student’s credentials, as it demonstrates additional capacities that are likely to differentiate them from students graduating with an MPH alone. Students interested in the MA-Bioethics/MPH dual degree must apply separately to each program, and should be sure to indicate their interest in completing a dual degree on both applications.

The first year is spent at Rollins. The second year is spent at Laney Graduate School.

The following courses offered through the Bioethics curriculum may be used as elective credit hours toward the MPH degree:

Course NumberCourse TitleCredit Hours
BIOETH 502 Classic Issues in Bioethics 3 credits
BIOETH 503 Contemporary Issues in Bioethics 3 credits
BIOETH 505 Special Topics 3 credits

Bioethics and the Law Animals and Ethics Neuroethics

Ethics of Human Subjects Research

Public Health Ethics Religion and Bioethics Distributive Justice

Human Rights and Bioethics

The departments and academic programs at Rollins that participate in this dual degree program are: behavioral, social, and health education sciences, environmental health, epidemiology, global environmental health, global epidemiology, global health, and health policy and management.