Career Trends Survey Results from University of Minnesota SOPH Alumna

Career Trends Survey Results from University of Minnesota School of Public Health Alumni

Posted on June 24, 2025 by Nikki Weiss

This entry is part 58 of 61 in the series Wide World of Public Health Systems

A 2024 enumeration found that the size of the current US public health workforce approximates that of the workforce before the Great Recession, suggesting that public health employee numbers have not increased to keep up with population growth in the past two decades (and there have now been further cuts associated with new federal priorities). Because staffing affects health agencies’ capacities–and, in particular, the capacity to provide foundational public health services–it is important to understand career paths of recent public health graduates, including whether or not these graduates took jobs in governmental public health. In 2021, the University of Minnesota (UMN) School of Public Health (SPH) conducted a baseline Career Trends Survey (CTS) to gather insights on its alumni’s career trajectories with the goal of helping to elucidate public health staffing challenges. This blog post describes an overview of the methods used as well as authors’ main findings.

SPH graduate alumni were invited to participate in the survey between January and March 2021. Of the 8,817 who were invited, 1,966 submitted a response (22% response rate). Though the survey asked various questions about employment outcomes, perceptions of the alumni’s education while a student, and alumni demographics, this blog post focuses only on 1) the proportion of graduates’ first jobs by job sector over time, 2) how closely graduates’ first jobs related to public health over time, and 3) the proportion of graduates who switched job sectors over time.

One main finding of note is that regardless of decade of graduation, the most frequently reported first job of alumni was in health care. Government and education were the second and third most frequently reported first job (also in every decade). Excluding those whose first job was self-employment, the sectors that saw the highest proportion of graduates remain in that sector were health care, government, private/for-profit, and education (in that order).

Also of note is that graduates’ first jobs tended to be either “related” or “strongly related” to public health. However, though the majority of respondents noted that their first jobs were related to public health, proportionally fewer graduates in the 2010s reported their first jobs as being “related” or “strongly related” to public health compared to those who graduated in prior decades, and this decline over the decades was significant for MHA graduates, MPH graduates, and all graduates combined (it was not significant for MS and PhD students). This finding in particular is one we wish to highlight because it suggests that proportionally fewer UMN SPH graduates are taking jobs in public health.

These results, of course, should not be generalized to graduates of other public health degree programs, which is why it is critical for similar surveys to be implemented, as schools like Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the Uniformed Services University have done. (Though the latter asked questions more specific to military officer career trajectories and thus isn’t directly comparable to UMN SPH’s CTS, the former found decreased or stagnant employment in government jobs and increased employment at for-profit organizations.) In addition, the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health plans to conduct a similar survey (Public Health Alumni Career Trajectories Survey [ACTS] pilot) but on a much wider scale, allowing for more general conclusions about the status of public health staffing to be made. Given recent federal reorganizations and funding cuts, such research is critical for understanding barriers in public health staffing and their implications for foundational public health services delivery.

About the Author

Nikki Weiss: Nikki Weiss is a biocultural anthropologist specializing in mixed methods research. She earned her master’s and doctorate in anthropology from Ohio State University. Previously, Nikki worked for the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health – Great Lakes Hub and the CDC Foundation. Her research interests include health equity and making health care accessible and attainable for all.