This year, a new major in public health studies has been added to the course offerings. The program began in 2008 as a minor and the proposal for establishing it as a major was approved last semester.

"Public health has been traditionally offered at the graduate level and offering it at an undergrad level creates more opportunities," said Kristen Sullivan, coordinator of the public health studies advisory committee and associate professor of human service studies. "More and more schools are offering these types of programs because the demand is there. There's a lot of support to promote undergrad education like this."

Students' interest and the demand for the expertise in today's society pushed the process of turning the minor into a major, said Eric Hall, committee member and associate professor of exercise science. The interdisciplinary major requires 28 core hours, 16 hours within a focal area, sociocultural or biological, and four elective hours. Some courses come from with the General Studies, economics, biology, philosophy and exercise science departments.

"I think public health studies sort of coincides pretty nicely with a lot of other majors like exercise science, possibly psychology and human services," Hall said. "All three of them work very well with public health studies and students can pick a track in what they want to do. Students can play to their strengths in what they feel most comfortable."

Some courses in the major, such as Introduction to Epidemiology, also count toward the minor. Sullivan has taught this course and Global Health since they've been offered and she said the major comes at a great time because it relates directly to the issues society is currently facing regarding health disparities and policy decisions.

"We have a big focus on health disparities, looking at how oppressed and marginalized groups tend to suffer more from health-impairing conditions and figuring out ways how to eradicate those disparities," she said. "It's domestic and global and there's a huge intersection between public health and development."

Although she's not a public health major, senior Rachel Banner, an exercise science major, said she would have liked to pursue a degree in the new major and was on track to minor in public health but opted not to because of time constraints.

Banner said she would like a career in public health after graduation and sees herself going into the education or policy development areas of public health.

"I'm a human services minor and I originally wanted to do occupational therapy but I saw myself more working with people," Banner said. "My goal is to get communities more active and healthy. That requires knowledge of exercise science principles and the human services aspect for working with communities."

Because public health is broad, the major prepares students like Banner for graduate school, according to Hall.

"It allows students to influence the health of society and gives them jobs in local, federal and state agencies looking into health," he said. "There's a lot of issues with our society right now when it comes to health. The job market should be pretty high for this major."

Banner is optimistic about the major and agreed with both Hall and Sullivan on the importance of its creation at Elon.

"I'm really glad they've added public health studies," she said. "It's something that's very important currently in the U.S. just because our ways of communication and behavior have changed so rapidly in the past decades that it's having an effect in the health."

In its first year, the public health studies major has 30 students, demonstrating how much students are interested, Sullivan said.

There will be students graduating with the major this spring and those with minors will not have to add many extra classes to successfully complete the major.