(Note for Prospective Applicants: Beginning in the Fall 2012, the School is moving to a new Certificate program with more than 20 offerings including: Child, Youth, and Family Health; Public Health and Humanitarian Assistance; Global Health; and Sexuality, Sexual, and Reproductive Health. Visit the Prospective Student/Columbia MPH site for more information.)

 Faculty, research staff, and students in the Reproductive and Family Health Track, work to improve the health and well-being of men and women, adolescents and children, in our own neighborhood, the nation, and throughout the world. Students develop research and programmatic skills through coursework that includes theoretical and sociocultural content about their topics of particular interest. They benefit as well from exposure to the variety of service-based research and programs underway within the Department.

Track Overview

The primary purpose of the Reproductive and Family Health Track is to train the next generation of public health professionals engaged in the practice of comprehensive reproductive public health service delivery, and of services for adolescents and children. The Track’s teaching and research components emphasize pragmatic, inter-disciplinary, and human rights-based problem-solving in the health and social sectors, and include attention to policy and health systems frameworks.  In the Reproductive and Family Health Track, students learn through:

1. Graduate-level training in public health. The Program offers a Masters in Public Health (M.P.H.) in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. The curriculum includes public health core and departmental cores, as well as required substantive courses.
2. Research, policy analysis, and partnerships. Departmental faculty members lead innovative research projects, and participate in local, national, and global partnerships to contribute to the effectiveness and quality of service delivery programs. Frequently, students become involved.
3. Direct services to populations in need, and developing innovative health programs. Departmental faculty members and research officers participate in a range of settings – such as clinics, schools, city and state governments, and national and international non-governmental organizations – to improve the quality and efficacy of public health service delivery. Students, through practica and internships, work directly in programs that serve communities. 
4. Human rights and evidence-based advocacy networks that promote sexual and reproductive health in its broadest sense.Departmental faculty members and research officers participate in a range of networks.

Faculty and Staff have diverse training and backgrounds in fields such as clinical nursing and medicine, epidemiology, demography, sociology, psychology, law, social work, program administration, and public health. Staff who relate to students in the Reproductive and Family Health track are located in New York, as well as several countries in Africa, South Asia and Latin America.